A 12 Step Program
by FalseEyelashes
Summary: 12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And i
1. 1: Inner Charm

**A 12-Step Program**

**Disclaimer: **Who am I fooling? I'm not even British…so, obviously I am not JKR and these characters are not my own. That said, this entire story will contain song lyrics at the beginning of each chapter. All songs were written by the genius P.J. Harvey and are all off her album _Stories from the City – Stories from the Sea. _Listen to it while you read it. It's effing amazing. Also, one line of this story is T.S. Eliot derived. Not my own, unfortunately.

**Rated: **R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **Don't hate me. That said, the story I should be working on, _Fear and Loathing in Romania_, has been derailed (no pun intended). I can't seem to get back on the ball with that one. Instead, I find myself being consumed by a silly plot that instead of leaving me alone continues to snowball. And I will warn you, this story is slight AU and it ultimately centers around a Remus/Lily romance. And we're not talking conventional Sad-Sack-Kind-To-Every-Soul-And Hopelessly-In-Love-With-Sirius!Remus, nor are we talking about Goody-Two-Shoes-Plain-Vanilla!Lily. Instead, we have Wolfish-Predator!Remus and Passionate-Bored-And-Slightly-Crazy-Yet-Completely-An-18-Year-Old-Girl!Lily. That's not your cup of tea, don't read on and don't tell me how much you resent and/or hate this particular pairing or characterization. I find it intriguing, so I am here to investigate it. As for the rest of you, I do hope you read and enjoy this. This first chapter is kind of short, but it's more of an introduction to Lily and her psyche than anything else. There is, quite literally, no action in this chapter. More a "set the stage" kind of thing. Please, review and thanks for the time.

**_- - -_**

**_-_**

**_- - -_**

**1. Inner Charm**

Speak to me  
Of your inner charm  
Of how you'll keep me  
Safe from harm  
I don't think so  
I don't see  
Speak to me  
Of your inner peace

_"The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore" PJ Harvey_

_**- - -**_

**_-_**

**_- - -_**

She remembers growing up and attending church on Sunday. And she remembers the pamphlets on the side table, between the entrance, the holy water and the crucifix. She remembers the pamphlets, the packets and the papers and those Sundays at nine, after the eight o'clock mass. She would stand there with Petunia, waiting for her parents to end the socializing. Bored, she would stand there, standing and staring at the collection of brochures before her.

She soon discovered the programs. She soon discovered there's a program for everyone and everything. The alcoholics, the cancer patients. The sex addicts, the drug addicts. The living and the dead, the dying and the surviving. There are programs for all; programs designed to recover and rebuild. It's all treated as a disease, a malignancy needing to be snuffed out. It's all treated with any number of steps, to cure, to solve, to liquefy.

She always assumed there was something inherently wrong with her if she was drawn to perusing these leaflets week in and week out.

Today she knows there is. Today she knows something new, something different. There are steps a person takes, steps belonging to a program she will never find offered at her small local church. No. They won't be sponsoring this particular program – the disintegration of a person, the flower petals falling off after spring as sprung and the sun rises a bit too hot.

This is a 12-step program. It wasn't designed to end in love.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

His name is Remus Lupin. And her name is Lily Evans.

He is a wolf. And she is his waiting prey.

She knows there are rules about these sorts of things. Rules passed down at sleepovers, either implicitly or explicitly, and outlined in written form on the pages of _BeWitched_ magazine and played out on her mother's favorite soap operas.

Girls with boyfriends are never, under any circumstances, allowed to lust after said boyfriend's best friend. Ever. Never ever.

His name is Remus Lupin. And there's mystery in those eyes.

For a girl who plays by all the rules regarding academics and legal activity, she is surprisingly drawn to breaking social codes. She'll return her library books on time, but she'll cross her legs at the knee rather than the ankle. She will obey all traffic laws but wear a pair of slacks instead of an effeminate skirt.

She won't cheat on her Herbology exam. But she will cheat on James Potter.

His name is Remus Lupin.

Despite her calm exterior, she has always been a messy tornado of emotion. Swirling about and collecting everything in her path and adding it to her list of causes or convictions. Favorites or vices. And then she'll fizzle, burn out, and all that's left will be a collection of miscellaneous junk that doesn't add up to much. Then, the winds start stirring once again, and she's off. Only in the completely opposite direction. And we all know how it will end. Her crying somewhere, attempting to pour out her deepest, most secret, utterly shameful thoughts and wondering when she went wrong and why she attracts the wrong instead of right without a single bit of effort.

She's the wind knocking down the walls. And James is sitting pretty on the couch.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She used to find it unspeakably lame, this idea of marrying a "high school sweetheart." She had grown up with too many Sandra Dee movies, too many Annette Funicello morals with Frankie Avalon bursting on the scene somewhere between the ages of fifteen and sixteen with a wedding ring, a rock the size of a Buick, sitting pretty on her left hand by that so-adult eighteenth year.

She turned eighteen in April.

She had let herself fall a little for James Potter around that age between fifteen and sixteen, that age when she finally let him burst upon her scene. She was dating him by seventeen.

There were no drive-in movies for them. No shared banana splits and saddle shoes, the flipped ponytail and matching poodle skirt. There might has as well have been.

She turned eighteen a month ago. In a month they'll be done with school. And in three, she imagines she will be Mrs. James Potter.

She tells herself she loves him. And she does believe it true. But there's something about the situation that works as a kind of anesthetic, and she's not quite sure what its name is.

They used to have passion. She's not sure when it fizzled into this.

She loves him. Of course she does. He has given her no reason not to.

He's perfect. James Potter is as bloody close to perfect when it comes to a man that she will ever get, and she knows this. Recognizes it in the perfection of tousled hair and glasses perched on his nose. Sees it in the way he can make her laugh without effort more so than scowl or glower in utter irritation or conempt. He is daring and adventurous. He is smart and he is witty. He is loud and light and everything right seems to drift right into his wake.

She loves him. But he won't chase her spark.

He thinks she's beautiful. He tells her so all the time. And it's the way he says it that allows her to almost, just almost, believe him.

She has discovered that's not what she wants. From him.

She loves him.

He's perfect. He's perfect and he's lacking.

She loves him. But no longer lusts for him.

She watches him next to her, in her bed. Fast asleep and snoring slightly.

There's a word that echoes through her skull: love love love. She feels a patient of an illness she will never name out loud. She feels a patient, impatient, a patient. Etherized upon a table. Yes, she will stare at the stars with you T.S. Eliot. And not feel a single thing. Not feel a single thing.

She has found she can't feel a single thing with him anymore. Monotony. Numb numb numb. Dumb dumb dumb.

She used to spend summers reading the greats, the poets. T.S. Eliot among them. She once tried to explain the magic, the rhythm, the perfection of poetry to James. He didn't see it, couldn't find the sparkle or the enchantment hidden in the margins or between the Muggle words, written or unspoken. She feels the pulse of the English language. And it disheartens her he can't seem to match the beating of her heart as he lies unconscious next to her.

She gets it now. She's lonely.

More than that. She's sad. She has never been concerned that he might find her to be unattractive. She knows that's not the case. And he makes it known each time he sees her. She doesn't need this reaffirmation time and time again to understand his love.

That's not what she wants. He's lacking.

What gets her, more than fucking anything, is that he doesn't seem to want to get under her skin anymore. He, at times, seems almost frightened of setting her off. And this never used to be the situation. He doesn't want to piss her off or hurt her or make her claw her own eyes out and rip the wallpaper down with her in utter agony. Over him. He doesn't want to crack this case and take her apart and figure out what makes things tick and why the circuit trips when you press this button. He won't dare to call her selfish and stubborn and at times an utter and complete self-absorbed bitch. He won't throw dirty words and angry curses her way. He won't. And she finds she wants this all the more, more than the dime store words of love and adoration. She wants to break, she wants to crumble. She wants him to be the wicked boy instead of the lovesick swain.

And she just doesn't understand why he won't raise the mallet to her pretty head.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She has always craved a painful love. She has no idea where this idea came from.

Before she found James, she was a mess, a disaster compared to her current state. She would sit there, in any classroom, and look at a boy across the room, across the street, across the world and let herself fall in love a little bit. Painting a picture of matrimonial bliss or a torrid affair, peppered with angry words and passionate sex. She didn't think the thoughts nice girls dream up. She blamed herself, her warped unconscious, her easy ability to craft scenarios in her head that would make her blush if ever uttered out loud. She assumed it was the Catholic in her, the penchant to shame and be ashamed.

She told herself she didn't want anymore nice boys knocking at her door. Too many had come and gone, and she was none the wiser. But she was told over and over again what a nice girl she was. And apparently that means the Nice Boys think they'll be a good match for her.

James Potter is a Nice Boy.

She used to lay about her room all day, reading Emily Dickinson and the Bronte sisters. Scribbling in her journal of the woes of teenaged youth, a frown cast down, symbolizing the angst of the day. Her mother called her a masochist, telling her she needed to get her act together. She had looked the word up, and after assuming her mother couldn't have possibly meant the first three (all relating or dealing with some sort of sexual perversion), she settled on the fourth: "enjoyment of hardship; the tendency to invite and enjoy misery of any kind, especially in order to be pitied by others or perhaps admired for forbearance."

She's come to refer to herself that way. A masochist.And she absolutely believes it so. She calls herself a masochist and knows the entire world can't see it there, lingering behind her green eyes. Only this time she refers to the second definition: "need for pain." She doesn't long for the physical aspects of pain, but rather the emotional. She thrives off anguish, and oddly desires it. But the sad thing is, for her pain-craving soul, she knows that they, more specifically _he_, could never break her. She, she would crack them all in half, and wonder what remorse is supposed to feel like. For such a Gryffindor she's truly lacking in compassion when it comes to relationships and matters of the heart.

She knows it's wrong to crave pain. But she does. She craves pain, and a heartbreak worthy of the ages. She has been crafting this saga since the age of five and has yet to reach the climax or even tales of interest.

She has always loved nothing more than a good love story. But for her, something must be amiss; the story must end on a faulty note, a crooked axis, with grief in the forefront and lost love flittering between the words. She doesn't want to hear of the monotony of relationships. The contrived handholding, seemingly chaste pecks on the cheek, the lips. No. She wants passion, love, a tempest, a fury that doesn't make her knees buckle, but rather break. She wants a love that leaves her near lifeless. She'll be your smiling corpse once you're through with her.

She imagines that once she's broken she'll be met with a silence shehas only everdreamed of. Her passion quelled and set at bay, and for once, just once, she'll be able to think, clarity sparkling within her.In her mind, pain is cleansing.She has no idea where this idea came from either.

But James, he touches her as though too much contact might make her break. He treats her as though she belongs on an altar somewhere, with him on his knees before her.

His arm is around her now, as he inhales his breakfast.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

Stirring her tea with a spoon, she idly wonders if there's some inherent meaning in the fact that the word "devil" backwards is "lived." The thought enters her head as she watches him, watches Remus, watches the quiet boy and the unfathomable thoughts associated with him. She finds she can't seem to shake the association between the two. Devil. Lived. Lived devilishly. The devil living. She doesn't know. Maybe the connection exists solely, soulfully in her head.

They sit there in the Great Hall. James on her left and Remus across from him. Sirius sits there surprisingly silent, musing over a letter before him, then letting loose a wicked grin and passing Remus the sheet of parchment. She watches his reaction. The steady look of concern, and then the creeping across his visage. She watches the boy in front of her morph into an imp: the eyebrows dancing, the slight, slow grin dangerously sliding up one side.

In that moment, she knows the meaning of devilish.

She knows what he really is. She knows which heart beats at the very core of him. He's a werewolf. And once a month, he could rip her face off if she dared cross his path. And her own boyfriend is an Animagus, as are Sirius and Peter. The Wolf. The Stag. The Dog. The Rat.

And she is just The Girl.

It reminds her of when she had been a child and played make-believe with the boys in her neighborhood. They would run around, gallivanting as knights, pirates, cowboys or spies, and she, she was their princess locked in the upstairs tower, the kidnapped wench, the damsel in distress tied to the train tracks. She was always on the outside looking in, made helpless by her inability to reach in. Thisis no different. The marauders were just pretend cowboys, lassoing nothing but air.

Lost in thought, she catches his eye. He catches her staring, at him. She smiles shyly, praying her face isn't burning the way she is inside. She can see the curiosity lingering on his face.

She ducks her head, and as she does, she notices his smile hasn't faltered. His teeth are still bared and in her mind they're scraping down her neck. His smile never fades and she understands fully the meaning of the word "predator."

Head bowed low and eyes still on him, he calmly raises an eyebrow. And she can feel her heart race a little, her throat constrict and suddenly she has forgotten how to swallow.

_Thoughts. They are only thoughts. _

She lets her eyes linger just a little bit longer on the white of his teeth, and watches as he raises an apple to his lips and his teeth sink straight in. The juice drips down his chin.

She remembers that the devil backwards is lived. She wonders if that makes him God.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**


	2. 2: Gypsy Landslide

**A 12-Step Program**

**Disclaimer: **Meh, you can see my name. And it sure as hell isn't JK Rowling. Or PJ Harvey. So not only are the Harry Potter characters not my own, but the song lyrics showcased in the beginning are not my creative offspring either.

**Rated: **R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **Wow. Thank you for the fantastic reception. I have to tell you all, I am thrilled that you guys are interested in this story. Makes my day. Now, to answer some queries. This story is _slight_ AU. Read that statement as you may. I don't want to ruin the fun. I will add that idea that I am making up all my own dates, when it comes to births and time spent at Hogwarts. The timeline isn't exactly canon, so my apologies. But, please, do read on and leave me some sort of feedback, good or bad, and I hope you enjoy the second installment.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

**2. Gypsy Landslide**

So I take my  
Good fortune  
And I fantasize  
Of our leaving  
Like some modern-day  
Gypsy landslide  
Like some modern-day  
Bonnie and Clyde

_"Good Fortune" PJ Harvey_

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

Gwendolyn Harrison is sitting at her dressing mirror and for the fifth time in the last fifteen minutes, she is attempting to set her mess of blonde hair into a restrained plait. For the infinite time that day, Lily is grateful this will be the last week she shall ever have to share a residence with this girl.

Books on arthimacy and divination lay abandoned at the foot of her bed. Next to a day-old pair of socks and battered, scuffed shoes. Lily threw up the white flag of defeat in the impending face of N.E.W.T.'s a little over half an hour ago in favor of sleep. Sleep Gwendolyn Harrison is doing everything in her power to prevent Lily from finding.

Gwendolyn has spent the past fifteen minutes in a spirited debate with other roommate Edith Matthais about the only topic to ever pass Gwen's lips with an ounce of passion: men.

_Witch Weekly_ shimmers underneath Edith's bed. The witch on the cover puckers her lips and blows invisible kisses Lily's way. "Spice upyour love life in five easy steps!" "Simple spells to keep the passion alive!" "Excerpts from the all-new edition of Wizard's _Kama Sutra_!" Another kiss is sent in her direction.

She rolls over and pulls the sheets over her redhead. She can still hear Edith and Gwen's discussion.

"You know, there really are only two types of guys. There are the guys you'd marry and the guys you'd fuck." Gwendolyn's voice has surprisingly piqued her interest.

And Lily's voice rises, disembodied beneath the weight of sheets and a comforter. "What's the difference?"

The hair brush drops; she can hear it hit the table. She imagines they are surprised. She usually stays out of the obligatory morning-after chats her roommates share, and never weighs inon the benefits and disadvantages of certain sexual situations. She's not even sure why she chose to speak now. But she has and she did.

And Gwendolyn laughs, pausing, dropping her hands into her lap. Her blonde hair sitting on her shoulder half braided. She fingers the ends as she speaks. "It's really rather simple. The men you marry are the proper, stand-up gentleman who hold doors for you and tell you that you look pretty as opposed to hot. He'll hold down a good, steady job with an even better and steadier salary. He's clean-shaven and wants children. He's that man who you just know your mother will approve of, and trill all about it to her friends, about what a respectable man her daughter has found.

The guys you'd fuck are wrong in all the right ways. And I think _that_ says enough right there."

Edith giggles as Gwen turns back to the mirror, undoing the plait she had already begun and slowly starts anew. Her eyes fixed on the mirror, on the heap of covers reflected back that is Lily Evans.

"You're lucky, Lils. You've already found one."

Lily doesn't have to ask which type she's referring to. She already knows.

But she has filled Lily's mind with teeth-rotting candy. Filled it with all sorts of tempting sweets, too delicious for words, but apparently not for images or tart fantasies.

She hears the girls say good night and when she opens her eyes, the room is dark. She closes her eyes once more.

Lily wonders how many teeth she'll lose over this one.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

He groans, she sighs, and slowly he pulls out of her. He kisses her forehead gently, cradling her skull in his large hands, while she, she buries her face in the crook of his neck, steadying her heartbeat with each intake of breath.

When it comes to sex with James Potter, this has always been her favorite part. Not the hurried foreplay, nor the initial entry. It's never been about the orgasms or the act itself, the cadence of copulation, the frenzy of fornication. Instead, it's always been this that she has loved.

She loves it when he takes her in his arms, sweaty and out of breath, panting slightly and there are no words. She loves that there are no words. It's just them, just him and just her and she can't see a single thing beyond him.

There is something about being caged beneath his arms that makes her feel safe, allows her to forget. Lets her place her load of the world roughly upon someone else's shoulders.

It has never been about the sex between James Potter and Lily Evans. It is always about the post-coital calm and glow.

He kisses her temple once more, and then is off her, rolling to his own predetermined side of the bed. The chill of the room sets upon her sweaty skin, and she feels damp and clammy. And wide awake.

It is their last night behind the walls of Hogwarts. Tomorrow, they are rid of this place and suddenly responsible for their own futures. Tomorrow is the clichéd first day of the clichéd rest of her life.

She can close her eyes and see her parents hugging her here, congratulating her on finishing school. She can see them hugging her, congratulating her on her marriage. She can see them hugging her, congratulating her on motherhood. She can see an entire sidewalk of expected congratulations from her parents, balloons in the background, with messages of graduates and wedding bells, of babies born and birthdays brought. She doesn't need Trelawney here to tell her the path her life shall take. She doesn't need a cup of tea leaves or a magic crystal ball. She just needs the man lying next to her to take her hand in his, and the rest shall follow, fall like the leaves off trees and the seasons, the years shall drift on by.

She feels his hand drift up and down her arm, slowly and gently, like every other aspect of their relationship. She should love him for this tenderness.

And she knows, knows as his hand dances up and down, from her elbow to her wrist bone. Her future is not her own. No, it is shared; it belongs to the hand that belongs to the man falling off to sleep in bed with her.

He rumbles softly of her beauty, that he loves her and good night.

The bells chime midnight. It is their final day.

The clock keeps ticking. Echoing the tolling of the night, of the right, and of the arrival of the coming day, days, month, months. She knows it will all disappear in a hurry. She hates it. She hates how she keeps ticking, right along with that clock, only there's a stick of dynamite attached to it now, and the clock goes back instead of forward, and one of these days, one of these days, it'll all just stop. The clock. The fuse. Her heart. And she will wonder to her exploding self if it was worth it. Any of it. For she is eighteen years old right now, but she can plot the entire curvature of her existence to come to a tee, and knows, knows that in the end it all could be crammed into a paragraph, hell, an elaborate sentence peppered with plentiful punctuation.

It will all end as expected. It will all end with her lying beneath the bars of his arms and the panting of his breath, silence as her only consolation.

It will all end as expected.

"I love you too," she whispers, turning away from him, waiting for sleep to claim her.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

"You want some eggs, butter bean? Hmmm? Lovey? My big boy wants some breakfast?"

Lily watches in revulsion, watches as though watching two trains full of orphans collide, as her sister Petunia feeds her odious husband a forkful eggs.

"Oh, pet. Delicious…simply scrumptious!"

Lily can feel the orange juice and toast rising within her as the newlyweds continue to giggle and purr.

"For Christ's sake, get a bloody room." She throws her fork down and opens the paper to hide the couple from view.

"Hmph." Petunia rises, carrying a plate to the sink. She turns, posturing, hand on hip and nose crinkled up. "You, you're just jealous, you…you wit-….weirdo."

Lily arches an eyebrow. "That's it. I'm jealous." Sarcasm oozing from each and every word, Petunia turning an unflattering shade of violet.

Vernon removes his large frame from the table, shuffling over to his bride. "It's alright, petal. Little sis doesn't know what she's talking about. Wouldn't know love if it hit her square in the face."

Petunia giggles, and the all-but-attractive pair look on at Lily as she sits there, attempting to hide her shellshock at Vernon's words.

"That's what I thought."

She decides in that moment she hates this man. And especially hates that she can't seem to come up with her usual witty retort. Instead, she watches, as though transfixed, as the two, her sister and her husband twine their fingers together, and then separate, moving to the sink to share in the dishes. And Petunia washes, and Vernon dries; he whispering in her ear, and she ever dramatically giggling and swooning.

She watches the two and knows that this is what the world calls domesticity.

Never in her life has she felt this entrapped.

Never in her life has she wanted to run wilder.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

It had all started with Sirius yelling at the platform 9 and ¾.

"Party at the Potters'! Friday night! Party at the Potters'! You bring the booze and we supply the fun! _Party at the Potters'!_"

Now, as she wound her way up the Potters' curving driveway with Gwendolyn and Edith in tow, she wonders how great of an idea it had been to announce to a train station full of Hogwarts students and strangers alike that there was a party at the Potters'.

She has never seen so many drunken teenagers in her entire life.

"Oh, Merlin," Edith mutters. "That is a _lot_ of people."

Lily remembers as she glances at the brunette that Edith had never attended a single party thrown by the rowdy Gryffindors. She had been the studious type, while Gwen the more promiscuous. Lily had found herself situated somewhere in the middle of their continuum of morality.

Gwen giggles. "More like a _lot_ of boys." She whips a mirror out of her tiny purse, making Lily wonder how it possibly fit in there in the first place. "If you'll excuse me girls, I have some work to do."

They watch her strut on over to an already inebriated Sirius, throwing herself at him as her obscene version of a hello.

She watches Edith's eyes widen, and chuckles to herself.

Gazing about the crowd, she searches for a familiar face, or at the very least something to drink. Then she feels an arm curl about her middle, resting softly about her hip.

She doesn't need three guesses to know it's him.

"Hullo, love."

She turns and her boyfriend kisses her quickly. She can taste the firewhiskey on his breath. Looking up, she notices his entourage. Among them, Remus Lupin. Remus Lupin clutching a mug of unidentifiable liquid to his chest.

He smiles at her, smiles without baring teeth. He smiles and nods his head lightly. "Lily."

He calls this a greeting. So she will do the same. "Remus."

She has seen James every day, but Remus, she hasn't seen him in a week. And she's found she likes to look at him.

The conversation continues around them, Lily chiming in every now and again with James's arm still calling her his own. She continues the conversation, but can't take her eyes off the two boys.

Side by side, the two would be impossible to choose between. James, with his bright blue eyes and tangle of dark hair. The glasses creating an air of intelligence, his smile a wave of familiarity and comfort. And Remus. She decides she likes him best unkempt. She likes him best when it's obvious he hasn't shaved in days and his chin is covered in the beginnings of a beard. His eyes reek of darkness and something she can't quite come to understand, and she wonders if it's the mystery that keeps her coming back to him, if only, solelyin thought.

She watches the two boys, the two men. She watches James stumble and crack dirty jokes, giggling despite himself. She watches Remus and his controlled sips from the cracked mug in hand. She watches the slow smile and the sly, suggestive comments slipping with innuendo.

She thinks back to Gwendolyn's theories and comments from the week before. And realizes that she was right.

She has already found one. One of each.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

Hours later, the festivities have died down. The party has dwindled down to a collection of close old friends scattered about the Potter residence.

Through slit-shut eyes she can make out the collection of shot glasses on the coffee table before her. She can also see the empty bottle of firewhiskey and feel the three-quarters gone bottle of vodka wedged between her hip and that of another. Remus Lupin's hip to be exact.

There they are: the two of them. Lounging on the Potters' couch, with Peter passed out in an armchair in the corner, now adorned with not only blonde curly pigtails, a feather boa and showgirl heels, but quite an impressive D-cup, courtesy of his own charming friends, Sirius Black and James Potter.

Frank Longbottom has gone outside with Alice Manchester, the two sweethearts since third year and most likely headed down the aisle with holy matrimony as their final destination.

Lily is too tired to try and recognize the boys in the kitchen, all sitting at the cluttered table with a deck of cards split between them, all alternately taking shots or chugging the remains of their beer, random shouts and triumphant outbursts adding to and infusing their drunken cacophony. She thinks one might be Fabian Prewett. She knows two of them are James and Sirius.

Edith passed out in the bathroom an hour or so ago, and is now sprawled out in one of the guest rooms. Gwen disappeared with a former Quidditch athlete and Lily hasn't heard from her since.

She can feel the alcohol buzzing through her system, feel the weakness in her limbs, the clouding of her mind. And laughs softly to herself.

She feels the couch shift beside her. She turns her head to the left, meeting the eyes of Remus Lupin.

"Hi," she whispers. There is a victorious shout from the kitchen and the clinking of glass and sloshing of liquid.

He smiles, rather smirks. "Hi."

She plays with the bottle in her lap, turning it side to side, running her hand up and down its stem. She notices that he's now watching her intently; watching the slow, even movements of her hands and fingers.

"Why aren't you in the kitchen with the other guys?" She doesn't know why she's whispering, but for some reason finds it oddly appropriate.

He takes the bottle from her hands, sliding it out of loose fingers. He unscrews the top in one swift motion and pours some down his throat. She shivers as his face stays calm, impassive, as the alcohol burns its way down into his system.

He offers the open bottle to her, and she accepts.

"Someone had to stay here with you." She likes that he's whispering as well.

She smiles, a small smile, she quickly hides with the bottle. She tilts it up and lets it flow down, down, down. Her throat on fire, she sets the open bottle between them and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

"So, Lily Evans, where do you go from here?" He's looking everywhere but at her. His eyes skating along the walls, the portraits hanging there, across and over to the fireplace and the jar of floo powder, to the door and back again.

She's not sure what he means; she's not sure what he's implying. She's not sure she can continue sitting upright.

"What…"She clears her throat. "What do you mean?"

He finally looks at her. And she kind of wishes he hadn't. It's the eyes, she decides. It's the eyes that will be her undoing.

"I mean," he whispers, "where do you go from here? What are you going to with yourself now that school is over?"

She starts laughing. And then hiccupping. And then laughing because she's hiccupping.

"Well, I imagine, and this is all purely speculation, but I imagine I get married, pump out a couple of babies and spend the rest of my existence serving as some mistress of domesticity with my expertise expanding purely as far as the kitchen. Charming, huh?"

She hiccups again and takes another swig, the vodka nearly gone.

When she looks up, he isn't smiling.

"Why do you think that?"

"Why? Because it's what we do, I guess. I guess it's what's expected."

He nods slightly, his head dropping slightly, only to pop back up again.

"Did you hear Molly Weasley had another kid? Two actually. They're twins. Forget the names though…born in April."

Her stomach does a flip flop, the vodka churning about. She remembers Molly Weasley. She had been a seventh year when she had entered Hogwarts. She remembers thinking she was so pretty. It was probably the red hair. She has always felt a fellow redhead as her long lost kindred spirit. But Molly Weasley. She had been smart and studious, funny and charming. And now, six years later she had four children, a husband and a dirty kitchen.

In the Muggle world, women are a part of the workforce, in some shape or form. There is the feminist movement, the civil rights movement. And here they are, in a world where prejudice is the thread that holds their world together, hinging on arranged marriages and the promise of an heir.

And the followers of a mad Dark Lord deem this to be right.

She looks back into his eyes. "It's to be expected."

She turns her head away from his, her eyes drooping and feeling heavy. She lets them fall, lets it all slip away.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She hears the clock chime three and slowly opens her eyes.

She rubs them roughly, watching the sparkles dance before her eyes, her head dizzy and her mouth dry.

And then there is darkness. With squinting eyes she can see the faint outline of the white curtains fluttering softly in the breeze of the open windows. Can almost make out Peter reclining in his chair, a couple of lone boys passed out at the kitchen table. She imagines them to be Sirius and James. She imagines that they sit there, alone in the kitchen, save for the company of empty bottles and the occasional broken glass and fermenting puddle, while she is here, half of the couch claimed as her own.

She feels a foot bump against her thigh. Feels the toes rub through the socks up against the rough fabric of her jeans, and in her cloudy, muddled haze she can't ignore the thrill.

She likes to think that's James sitting at the kitchen table.

Sitting up, she can see Remus lying there. Breathing evenly, arm hanging limply off the edge of the couch.

She feels herself moving, creeping towards him, and knows that this is what it means to have relinquished all control.

She finds herself above him, hovering there as he lies on his back, head tilted to the side, her red hair hiding her face from his.

She lowers herself gently, settling herself onto him, her hands resting on his chest, rolling the buttons between her fingers, placing her head upon his shoulder.

She stays there. Heart pounding, breathing heavily into his ear. Her hands have found their way beneath his shirt, crawling up and down his chest, their path lengthening with each stroke. From belly button to ribs. From sternum to hip bone. Her hand continues to skate in almost figure eights.

He shifts, his body turning in towards hers, his arm wrapped around her body now.

She opens her eyes and in the dark she can see his above, open, glistening, disembodied.

Without thinking she presses her lips to the skin beneath his ear and relishes in his sharp intake of breath. His hand grips her hip gruffly. She can feel each and every fingertip pressing into her skin and she moans softly, barely audible.

Her hand continues its trajectory across his skin, inching lower and lower, following a path of hair she can't see but can only imagine.

She can hear him breathing unevenly in her ear. She can feel him.

She can feel him.

And her senses begin to filter back in, flittering, too close to the flame and too hard to distinguish.

Her hand finally dips just low enough, and it quickly becomes quite clear.

_I love James_.

She stops herself, resting the palm of her hand on his bare lower abdomen, his shirt rucked up courtesy of her.

_I love James_.

They lie there for a heart beat, their breathing all she can hear. And then he grabs her hand, brusquely, forcibly and wrenches it back down the path she had just abandoned.

She gasps and he groans.

She thinks of congratulatory balloons and crystal balls, of Molly Weasley and the Dursley union. She thinks of dirty diapers and casserole dishes, of being called beautiful and everything gentle and kind.

She watches his hips buck up and lets her lips brutally find his own.

**- - -**

**- **

**- - -**


	3. 3: A Pistol

**A 12-Step Program**

**Disclaimer: **Please, do not sic any government officials or the authorities in general on me. I am not attempting to break any copyright laws. I am not JK Rowling and the Harry Potter is not my own and I am not attempting to overthrow it. I am also not PJ Harvey, so lyrics shown in this chapter do not belong to me.

**Rated: **R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **Thanks for reading. And please, please, _please_ leave me feedback of any sort. It is _greatly_ appreciated. Do I sound as desperate as I am in all actuality? Because I am. Desperate, that is.

**- - - **

**-**

**- - -**

**3. A Pistol **

Baby, baby  
Ain't it true?  
I'm immortal  
When I'm with you  
But I want a pistol  
In my hand  
I want to go to  
A different land

- _"Big Exit" PJ Harvey_

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

There is something glaringly discomforting about awakening after a night of heavy drinking. Lily knows this. She has been acquainted with the fuzzy headache and the sandpaper tongue. She knows what it means to have a good portion of the night lost in a drunken haze.

This utter sense of dread is something new though.

Today she has found it is beyond discomforting, and somewhere in the realm of true terror, to awaken to a rising sun and in the arms, clutching the bare chest, of a boy, a man, who is not your own.

The pit and the pendulum, the swinging force of an invisible fist, clubbing its way into her stomach, a gurgling and a rollicking sea of vodka and tequila.

She can feel warm skin beneath her hand, can feel the light invisible weight of cotton resting on the back of her hand, a button grazing her knuckles. She can feel the ends of his hair tickling her forehead and she can watch his mouth move slightly, mouthing inaudible syllables.

She can see the front of his jeans. And the fact that the button is popped and the zipper has slid down.

She can feel the pendulum swinging back again. And prays she won't get sick.

For a terrified second, she imagines she's naked. She imagines she is spread across him, bare and prone, an odd blanket of birthday suit.

Her hand flies out from under his shirt and quickly, panic-stricken, runs upon and down her own body, relief filtering in as she catalogs the clothing. Shirt? Check. Pants? Check. Underwear? Check. Check.

_We didn't fuck. We didn't fuck._

Her heartbeat stills to a steady thump, and she exhales deep and slow.

_It's fine. Everything's fine. We got drunk and we fell asleep. Nothing happened. _

_Everything is fine. _

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

_Shit. Shit shit shit shit shit_.

It takes fifteen minutes for the panic, the memories and the nausea to return.

She sits up straight, one leg trapped beneath his own, the other lingering between his thighs.

It is times like these when she remembers why it is that she should never, ever consume alcoholic beverages in mass quantities. Or any at all, for that matter. Ever. _Ever_.

Drinking only leads to trouble. And usually of the sexual variety. She has spent the last seven years living with the infamous Gwendolyn Harris. She should know this lesson, inside-out, upside-down and doggy-style by now. You drink, and you find yourself positioned beneath a Quidditch star with a completely different understanding and respect for riding broomsticks. You find yourself in the Astronomy Tower, confessing undying love and indulging in utterly cliché, bad teenage sex. You drink and you snog, shag, and everything in between, your friends, your enemies and your former lovers. Gwendolyn has taught her this, through Exhibits A-Z, ranging from smudged mascara to broken bra straps, missing panties and hickey-erasing spells.

Apparently the lesson didn't stick.

And that's why she ended up giving Remus Lupin a hand-job in the middle of the night.

Sitting there, trapped between Remus Lupin and the Potter's couch, she can feel the morning after sense of shame begin to filter in. It's an odd, heady feeling, a feeling she finds herself quite unaccustomed to.

She can only imagine how this looks. The Potters' family room, dim in the morning light, clouds blocking the risen sun. Empty bottles from here to the kitchen, to the front door, the stairs and back. A boy and a girl, disheveled and entangled on the couch.

_Oh, fuck._

She raises her hands to her face, balled up in fist, and rubs her eyes until she sees stars. Looking up she sees Peter still reclining in his chair, and her sense of shame seems to double. He: their own private, unconscious audience.

She lets her eyes wander the cluttered room, and stops when she reaches the kitchen. There, passed out, arms sprawled, clutching a half-empty bottle in one hand is James. Her boyfriend.

She can't seem to stop staring.

James. James. James. Her boyfriend. James.

She is waiting for the surge in guilt, shame and embarrassment she knows should be on their way. She is waiting for the tears.

They never come.

She moves to stand, attempting to figure out the best possible course of action in the dislodging process.

She finds she isafraid, terrifiedto touch him.

Slowly, hesitantly, she places one hand on either side of his head, gripping the arms of the couch, attempting to twist her lower body free. It takes a second, and her hips meet his, and her legs slide free. Her hips meet his and she remembers his pants aren't buttoned.

She slides off the couch, less than gracefully, banging a shin on the coffee table in front of her, tripping over discarded shoes. She swears quietly.

She stands there silently in the dark room, watches as the first drops of rain decorate the morning windows.

She hears an unintelligible groan, a sigh, and the resumed heavy breathing of sleep from somewhere down below her.

Despite the racing of her heart, she refuses to look his way.

James is in the kitchen. And Peter is in the chair.

She races to the bathroom; not sure what she's running from, not sure what she's running to.

She lets the door shut with a slam, turns the lock and finds a strange amount of comfort in the resounding click. And she sits, head in her hands, back against the door. She sits. And she wonders where her moral compass has run off to. Wonders and questions and finds herself wrapped in thoughts she can't begin to make sense of.

James was in the kitchen. And Peter was in the chair. And she was fucking around with Remus.

She's not sure where it came from, but she's suddenly laughing. Breathless and almost soundless, her shoulders are shaking and her stomach is aching and for a second she asks herself if this is laughter or hysteria.

She has fucked up royally. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, she has fucked things up. And there's not a damn thing she can do to fix it. Instead, she will just traverse the emotional continuum, ranging from shame to embarrassment to gut-wrenching guilt and finding her way to hysterical hilarity on the bathroom floor.

She stands, catching her breath, and moves to the mirror above the sink.

"Bloody hell," she murmurs.

Her eyes are bloodshot and mascara is collected beneath her eyes. Her hair is sticking out at the oddest angles and looks as though some small rodent has decided to make it its home. Her lips are swollen, and to her utter horror she spots a hickey half-hidden by the collar of her shirt.

Yes, she is beginning to understand the shame of the morning after quite well.

She continues to stare at herself. The black-rimmed eyes and the puffy lips. The look of utter exhaustion. And satisfaction. Of all the words, of all the thoughts which have made their way into her head this morning, that is one she can't explain.

She turns on the faucet and bows her head, splashing her face with cold water.

That wasn't her last night. Lily Evans is not, nor has ever been, the girl who throws all caution to the wind and damns consequences and penalties without a single reservation. Lily Evans is not the kind of girl who cheats on her boyfriend while he is sitting a room away. She doesn't know who that girl was last night. And it scares her. And disappoints her.

And excites her.

She raises her head and grabs the towel sitting next to the sink. Slowly, she dries her face.

She fears she has turned a corner, wrecked a friendship, ruined a trust, created a judgment and mixed it all up in her messy, muddled head, confusing fact with fiction and she none the wiser.

It frightens her that she is more upset about Peterserving as an unknowing witnessthan the fact that James was a single room away.

She stares at her clean face in the mirror. She is not a whore. She is not some wanton slag who ruins relationships and breaks hearts.

She can't figure out why her reflection is smiling at her.

She shouldn't have done anything with Remus. She shouldn't have she shouldn't have she shouldn't have.

But she's kind of glad she did.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She had left James's party before anyone had awakened. She left a note for James, scrawled in a hurry, stating she needed to be home and blah, blah, blah, love you, see you soon.

She had left his house and walked along his gravel driveway in the pouring rain. She can feel the water drip down the back of her shirt and she shivers in response.

She doesn't know if she's fleeing James or Remus at this point.

She had almost made it out of the family room and out the door without a single incident, when there it was. Her name, sitting in the air, entering into her ears. "Lily." And she had turned around to find him there, sprawled across the couch, hair a mess and clothes undone.

She had moved to him, perched on the coffee table, curious to what came next.

She had expected odd, awkward silence between the two of them. The pink elephant in the corner of the room destroying any chance at conversation or explanation. Instead he asks her where she is going. And she kind of wants to laugh.

"Home."

"Why?"

"I'm tired." And then the silence began to filter in. Slowly, slyly, swiftly. It was there. And she knew she had to speak. "I am so sorry about last night –"

He hadn't given her time to finish. Rather, he raised one hand and shook his head. He leaned forward, kissed her on the forehead.

"It's fine." And it's all he said.

She continues to walk and ignores the fact her shoes are beginning to fill with water or she could chase this all away, the cold, the wet, the rain, with the simple wave of herwrist and the flick of a wand.

Walking, she thinks to herself of how she is so full of promise. Yet so lacking in initiative.

Her feet meet the edge of the street and she stares at the houses stretched in front of her. All replicas of each other, all one in the same.

With a _crack _she Apparates on home.

**- - -**

-

- - -

She is in a rut. Summer has proven to be not nearly as enjoyable as she had expected it to be, and she absolutely hates admitting that. Everything she had once loved now proves pedantic and boring and slightly childish, as ashamed as she is to confess.

She is not sure what she wants anymore. Out of life, out of herself. Hell, she seems to have lost the definition for herself several months back and she is still struggling to find the words to describe herself. She knows how to talk about who she once was. But who is she now? She can't string a sentence along to save her life.

The summer, or the handful of weeks of it so far, has seen its share of casual get-togethers among the friends. She expected awkwardness between the two, but she can't seem to catch it in the air. Everything is the way it once was. All friends. Just friends. But she has found she waits for him to arrive. They all will sit there, laughing, drinking, talking, and her eyes will be glued to the door, waiting, praying almost, for it to open and for him to come stepping through. Stalking across the threshold, long and lean, with a smirk that doubles for a grin and eyes she wants to solve.

He's let her down more than once. And she hates that she lets him disappoint her. She hates that she lets him affect her like that; the bucket of ice water poured on her heated excitement, with only steam and a chill left for company.

She is discovering that in her in idle moments, in her empty gaps of time, her mind effortlessly finds its way to him. Replaying the events of that drunken night over and over again, a broken record, with the same effect on her each time.

It's wrong. And she has a feeling that's why it feels so right.

He used to hang out with all the friends. Show his face at their events. She imagines he still comes around, only when she's not there.

She is a royal fool, a classic fool. Fortune's fool, perhaps.

She wrote him a letter. She hasn't seen, nor heard from him in two weeks time. And she's not sure why, or at least that's what she tells herself, but it's beginning to bother her. So she wrote him a letter, sent him an owl. And waited patiently, impatiently, for a week, until the burst of feathers came crashing through her bedroom window.

And she wrote back. And so it began: a dialog between two people through parchment and feathers. She finds she likes it. Reading the stories he has to tell her, relating the events of her life to him. It's nice. Nice, with her screaming in the background "platonic, platonic, platonic," like some desperate war cry not reaching over the sounds of firing guns and exploding cannons. Instead they play tricky games, leaving in lines in a letter, easily read the wrong way; letters beginning to reek more and more of innuendo and insinuation.

It's wrong, wrong, wrong.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She sits in the grocery store parking lot waiting for her mother's return. She had to pick up some milk, some meat, for dinner.

The window is rolled down and Lily's sunglasses cover half her face. She sits there, seat tipped back just enough, and lets the sun bake her through the windshield, the leather heating up around her.

She feels numb. Once again. Sick and numb and she wonders what the man getting into his car next to her would think if she threw the door open and vomited on his shoes. She watches him start his car, turn his head, and back out and drive away.

She closes her eyes. Trying to close out the exhaustion building within her. Her eyes are no longer closed out of her own volition, but have fallen heavy and leaden.

She never unbuckled the seatbelt. It's still there, a sash across her chest.

She lays there, eyes closed, orange against the sun behind them, and she begins to recognize the emotions within her. Anger. She knows this much. She is angry. She is angry and itching and dying to just burst out of this skin she's in and run, run, run towards nothing and everything. But she's still there. Windows down and doors are locked and the seatbelt is still buckled in place.

In the haze of rage, while seeing red, she asks herself what has made her so angry. It only adds fuel to the fire that she's lacking in answers.

She hears a key enter a lock and listens as the trunk door is unlatched. She waits, and hears the heavy slam shut, feels the car bounce back, and waits for her mother to sit behind the wheel.

The door opens, and her mother is babbling, talking about a great deal she got on a head of lettuce, and after that Lily tunes her out. The anger has yet to recede.

She sits there, with now open eyes, watching the trees slide past the window. She can feel the tears building and wonders simply just the word _why_.

She wonders if this is how it must be. The sky dark and the clouds sad and the rain softly settling. Not now. But always.

She's beginning to believe it might just be easier to live a lie than this angry truth. Paint her a mural, and place her inside. Paint her a mural and let her wander the fake greens and sky blues and she'll find him somewhere in the middle and make him smile and laugh and things will be like they used to be. Like they are supposed to be.

She feels the need to bite her tongue. She's about to scream. Scream and scream and scream until there is nothing left in her and she could fall back down again in peace. And quiet.

She keeps her mouth shut. And goes angrily home instead.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She sits on the front porch with James, a glass of lemonade in hand, watching the sun set before her as he plays with a few loose strands of hair around her face.

She wonders if this is what they call romance.

She had a strange realization a minute or so ago. She loves sunrises so much more than she does sunsets. And the irony here? She hates mornings. But she loves seeing sunrises, especially from the side where it still feels like the day before. No sleep, wide awake, and watching the next day bleed into the former, just as the sun bleeds into the horizon. She wants to watch all sunrises like that. The strange possibility, the strange fact that it is now another day, possibly another start, another chance.

Sunsets are far more depressing. The day is done, the dark has come. The night...she has always loved the night. But getting there is depressing. Sucking the light out of the day. And bringing us to...

Everything that should never have happened to her as been a result of the night, a result of bad choices in the dark.

She finds it odd, even unsettling, that they sit there in silence. They never do this.

She remembers Remus kissing her on the forehead. She wonders what he remembers of that night, wonders if he thinks even more of it than she does. She wonders if he read into things about her that don't truly exist. For she doesn't want him as her own. She doesn't want to date him or love him or claim him as her private possession. She just wants to play with him, with words and acts of intimation. Intimidation. If she ever wanted to claim him, it'd only be in the physical. She doesn't need his emotions or his heart. She needs his lust and desire to be set free.

She possesses something greater than even she can understand. Than he, the one sitting by her side, can ever understand. She knows he can't even begin to imagine the darkness and the depth that lingers behind deceptively bright eyes. Now, at this very moment, she doesn't want love. She wants lust. She doesn't want gentle. She wants pain. She wants to be hurt, from the inside out. Bruises for tokens of affection and curses for sweet nothings.

He turns to her, and she remembers this is their last night together for two weeks.

He is headed to the beach.

She is headed straight for hell.

He kisses her, and she turns back to the setting sun.

She wants to see the light from the edge of darkness. She wants to find love in the midst of pain. She wants to see the sunrise as the night fades into day.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**


	4. 4: Today, Tonight

**A 12-Step Program**

**Disclaimer: **If you're on Chapter Four, then I am assuming you have read chapters One through Three. Therefore, if you are still under the belief that I am either JK Rowling or PJ Harvey, that is your own issue and not a problem of mine. Oh, and the book Lily is reading in the beginning of this chapter is _Anna Karenina _by Leo Tolstoy (yes, of all books I choose that one ;) ). All the cool kids read Tolstoy for fun. Especially over the summer.

**Rated: **R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **Once again, I just want to thank everyone for reading this story. I am quite pleased by not only the way this story is shaping up, but its reaction as well. I really am glad that you guys are enjoying this as much as I am writing it. Thank you again, and please, enjoy and review!

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

**4. Today, Tonight**

And I draw a line  
To your heart today  
To your heart from mine  
And pray to keep us safe

Watch the stars now moving  
'Cross the sky  
Keep this feeling  
Safe tonight

- _"One Line" PJ Harvey_

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

"_I shall go on in the same way, losing my temper with Ivan the coachman, falling into angry discussions, expressing my opinions tactlessly; there will still be the same wall between the holy of holies of my soul and other people, even my wife; I shall still go on blaming her for my own terror, and being sorry for it; I shall still be as unable to understand with my reason why I pray, and I shall still go on praying; but my life now, my whole life apart from anything that can happen to me, every minute of it is no longer meaningless, as it was before, but it has an unquestionable meaning of the goodness which I have the power to put into it."_

Lily takes her hand off the corner of the book and lets the pages flutter shut, the back cover slowly, slowly, ever slowly, peeling itself off her comforter. It shuts with a snap, and she lightly drums her fingertips along its spine.

Taking the book with her hand, she flips it over, staring into the blank eyes of the portrait of the woman upon its cover. _Anna Karenina_ in great black letters across her forehead. Just above the eyes, eyes searching towards the spine of the book; searching for another.

Lily sighs, pushing a damp strand of hair off her forehead. She is bored. She has been. And slowly she realizes she isn't just referring to the last couple of weeks, but rather the last couple of years.

James is still at the beach. She received a short blurb of a letter letting her know that his parents had extended their vacation and they'll be there for an extra week. She hadn't bothered to ask why.

Her window lies wide open, and she likes that the leaves of the tree next to it seem to almost, just almost, poke their way on through. Reaching out to touch, skim the surface of the small red flowers in their small red pot waiting on the sill.

She imagines James off in the sun. And she sits here amongst the clouds.

She falls backward, her head hitting the pillow, her arm flying up to hide her face. This, this is a new definition of boredom.

She knows what it means to be bored. She has sat through Professor Binns's History of Magic class for the last seven years of her life. She knows how boring it is to hear of goblin wars and ancient legislation and how it all manages to bleed into perverse daydreams or the mangled, tangled list of things she should be doing tonight, tomorrow and in five years. She has sat through James's analysis of Quidditch with a straight face and nary a sarcastic quip. She has sat through her sister's entire wedding planning process and consequent ceremony. She knows what it means to be bored; she knows it means to pray for your mind to wander, sprint away from the present.

This is something new.

She has found she no longer wishes her mind to race away into the sunset of some already replayed dream, but rather, she wishes it was she herself running, running, running towards anything at all. Anything but what she imagines tomorrow to bring.

Restless. She decides that _this_ is the very definition of restless.

She doesn't like it much.

She hears a slight rumble of thunder, and listens as drops of rain bounce from leaf to leaf, the tempo quickening as it begins to pour.

She doesn't like English summers much. But she's never spent one elsewhere.

Lily watches hammering raindrops leap and dive on the hardwood floor beneath the window. She watches the drops accumulate, merging into one another. She watches the puddle take shape, watches the individual drops lose themselves in the ever increasing pool of water.

She watches it stretch towards her. Listens to the thunder roll, distant in the sky. The lightening doesn't come.

She sits silent as the red petals of the red flowers in the red pot are assaulted by drops, one right after another. Gently, they begin to fall, bleeding petals into puddles.

She quietly moves to the window, steps barefoot into the puddle. And pulls the window shut.

She presses her head to the window, listening to the angry pulse of the rain, and swallows hard.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

After supper, she finds an owl pecking at her window. She recognizes it at once, and can't quite name the emotion churning within her, disrupting her digesting dinner.

It's James's owl.

Staring at its grey feathers as it swoops into the room, she thinks about how lonely she has been. She has spent the better half of three weeks cooped up in her own bedroom with only late, great authors for company.

She pulls the letter from its talons and it dives straight into her own owl's water dish. Amidst the clang and the clatter, she unrolls it.

It takes her little under a minute to read it. And she lets the parchment drift down onto her bed, landing silently next to a dusty anthology of Shakespeare, her fingertips indentations in the grime.

Lily likes him till he speaks to her. And then it's all just shot to hell.

She sits at the edge of the bed, taking the fallen letter back between her fingers, curling the edges, lips pursed, and visage frowning.

She doesn't know what it is that she wants anymore. If it's him or just someone she can't quite name, the nameless, the shapeless, the shifting figure that tilts through her imagination, fulfilling her just enough to allow her to believe in love and not become completely disenchanted with the system. The System. That's what it is. A series of mechanisms of attraction and desire, with the givens and the loose hypothesis.

_Lily –_

_Miss you tons. Be home in a few days. Hope you didn't miss me too much. Stay out of trouble. See you soon. _

_Love,  
James_

_PS: The beach is bloody fantastic. Wish you were here. _

Wish you were here…wish you were here. She wonders why he makes pining after him so incredibly easy, but loving him up-close a chore. She wonders if it's she herself who has crafted the situation this way.

She only wants him when he's not here and his reality bends and shapes according to her every unconscious whim.

Lily stares straight ahead. Trying, yet failing, to ignore the creeping fear unfurling deep within her.

For the first time, she has allowed herself to recognize it. The question she has silently been asking herself in the back of her mind since the beginning of her relationship with James. Does she love him, or does she merely love the idea of him? Does she love the man who laid there next to her or does she love his possibility?

Does she love him, or something she knows he will never become?

She lets herself think back on this man, this boy, this figure ever present in her imagination. James Potter. Notorious trouble-maker, infamous for pranks and jokes that only every once in awhile seemed to backfire. Then, fate oddly enough stepped in, naming him Head Boy and granting him a position of power, prestige and, a foreign word for him, responsibility. He was Head Boy and she was Head Girl and she allowed herself to believe there was some kind of unspoken destiny lying there between them and said 'yes' when he asked her out once more.

She had believed the glistening gold badge on his wrinkled lapel might just mean something. That it might just bend him into the man she spent her nights dreaming of.

Staring at the letter, the few sparse sentences before her, she knows it hasn't. She knows that when he returns home, his vacation at the beachwill nothave changed him, just as the Christmas holidays had not, and every summer in between.

Lily Evans has spent the better part of her life infatuated with the idea of James Potter. She has also spent just as long disappointed by his reality.

Her mother used to laugh at her, telling her she expected too much of the world, too much of the people in. She had laid her hand upon her shoulder, squeezing softly, and whispered of how disappointment would be all she'd find.

Her sister used to sneer and tell her how her expectations were far too high; that there wasn't a single man on this earth, in both worlds, that would ever meet _her_ standards. She would tilt her head back, nose in the air, engagement ring upon her finger, and remind her that she would be spending the rest of her life alone until she learned to shed her holier-than-thou complex.

Gwendolyn Harris used to smile knowingly when she found out about Lily and James. She would smile, nudge her in the ribs, tell her to be careful with that one, with nary a twinkle in her eye, but a look, a look that stated of how she has been there and how you will only be let down.

Sitting there, shoulders slumped and limp hands hanging in between her legs, she wonders what she had expected. She never wanted a perfect romance; she knew those were few and far between, and the utter cliché of it all painted, tainted it undesirable in her mind. But she had wanted _something_, and with James, she seems to have found only tiny bits and scraps that don't ever seem to add up to make a whole.

She has emotion without motion. And knows why the winds can't seem to blow her sideways.

**- - -**

-

- - -

She counts the houses as they skid on past, red bleeding into blue and blue into an aged white. She watches sidewalks rise and fall and the scattering of children blended across its path. Girls who jump rope in the setting sun and the boys who pop wheelies on bikes now too small for their outstretched frames.

She asks herself silently if it's just tonight or every night that has come for the last eighteen years that the moon sets blood red. She wonders if the violence is something fresh or merely newly recognized by herself, tonight. But there it falls: staining the sky a dirty orange reaching out to yellow, mixing the clouds into fuzzy streaks, clawing out into the night. Red it closes, and she knows it will open up to black.

Her father drives leisurely and her mother clutches her handbag, fingering the handle absently, nervously. An old jazz tune makes its way out of bleary speakers, sounding warbled and broken as the offbeat, forlorn wail of a trumpet reaches her ears and she wonders why he, the faceless, but never soundless musician, is so damn sad.

Looking into the bleeding sun, she can only imagine why.

Her face is resting upon her hand, the window halfway down, and the breeze blows her hair up and out, up and out, reaching out to match the dying sun. She doubts, as a thick strand whips past her eyes, that the two could ever be a perfect match.

The traffic light turns red, and the car lurches to a stop. Her father drums light fingertips on the steering wheel, never quite on the beat, and her mother stares into her lap. She knows they are talking; she can hear the slight dim of voices, mixing with a broken bass beat, the hum of the wind and the anger of outside traffic.

They had just spent their first meal in Vernon and Petunia's new house. The roast had been too rare, spilling pink onto the porcelain, and the vegetables cooked too long. Somehow, Lily hadn't seemed to possess her typical spirit to stir the waters and create an all-out brawl over mushy carrots and barely edible meat.

Instead, she had fiddled with her napkin, run her finger up and down the stem of the glass before her, swishing the merlot round and round, a crimson whirlpool, and thought of the days when she and her sister played house, placing their lives in order and treating household chores as nothing more than games they were privileged enough to play.

Vernon and Petunia couldn't keep their hands off each other; the honeymoon had yet to end. Taking silent notes in her head, keeping an unspoken tally running, she had taken in the fact her own parents barely acknowledged the other's physical existence. Not a single brush of skin, graze of the hand, slip of the lips. And invisible leash, an indistinguishable barrier set between the two.

Not being able to handle much more, Lily had gone back to mashing tomatoes into her plate.

The car winds around a bend, and Lily can see straight ahead.

There, above the trees, reaching up and up and up is a cross, a cross adorningthe steeple of achurch. The church Vernon and Petunia were married in.

She can see the building inching closer; the dark cross in stark relief against the flaming sky.

There's a sign out front, a sign announcing the upcoming events, occasions and the like. It once had said "Congratulations, Vernon and Petunia!"

Today it simply states: "Salvation. Just Ask."

And Lily finds herself, in the back of her father's Cadillac, head raised to the fiery heavens whispering to herself. "Yes. Please save me."

The second the words leave her mouth, she immediately wonders to whom she is speaking and to what she needs rescuing from.

The torrent of answers that clouds her mind frighten her even more.

Her father pulls into the driveway, putting the car in park. Watching the remnants of that setting sun, all she can think of is rare roast, mixed merlot and tortured tomatoes.

"Save me."

This time, she knows exactly who she's speaking to.

**- - -**

**- **

**- - -**

_Slice._

She is standing in the kitchen now, two nights later, cutting the strawberries to make a pie.

_Dice. _

For some unfathomable reason, Lily Evans always believed she would meet the love of her life in a coffee shop. To her, it had always seemed the most romantic of locales, beating out Paris and sandy beaches by miles and miles of French kisses and salty surf. She couldn't explain it: the connection between romance and caffeinated cafes. But there it was.

_Slice. Dice. _

She met Remus Lupin while sipping tea in the Common Room, studying their first year Potions text. Their eyes had met over her steaming brew and locked. And all she could think was how those eyes were the color of coffee beans, those eyes were liquid gold.

She met James Potter days into their first year; he had mocked her and her bright red mane of hair, making a reference only a child raised in the wizarding world could have ever possibly understood, drawing even more undue attention to her beet red hair and face.

_Slice and dice. _

She had always been in favor of stories of two people coming together. She loved nothing more than tangible, frustrating sexual tension. It was the aftermath she had issues with. There was something about holding hands and gentle kisses on the cheek and the promises and declarations of undying promise and commitment that bored her.

She hated nothing more than how the deepest emotion imaginable could be demoted down to a parting phrase: the end of a letter, a conversation, a protest mid-argument, a bandage for a wound. "I love you."

_Slice and dice and slice and dice. _

She wonders someday if this shall become her world. A kitchen covered in potato peels and tomato wedges, shredded carrots and mozzarella cheese grated just so.

_Slice and dice and slice and dice_.

She has spent the last seven years in school, and she imagines that most girls were only there fulfilling an unstated societal duty. Fulfilling a familial promise of being sorted into the correct House, and just as in the times of old, making a correct match.

Lily watches her mother roll the dough out, over and over again, flour reaching up past her elbows.

A part of her questions if this woman was ever capable of romance.

_Slice and dice and slice and dice. _

She is eighteen. She wants romance and passion and excitement and everything that doesn't come with a gold ring and baby carriage.

She imagines that it all just falls away after the words "I do." In her mind, man and wife is not the same as man and woman.

She is terrified to learn the hard way.

Standing there in the kitchen, knife in hand, and berries on the chopping block, she acknowledges, that yes, she never has had realistic expectations. Concerning just about anything.

_Slice and dice and slice and dice. _

She can see that if she continues down this track she is on she'll be married by the age of nineteen.

_Slice. Dice. Slice. Dice. _

She can see the baby cradled there just after.

_Slice. _

_Dice. _

They always told her they looked good together. His dark hair against her fiery red; her green eyes paralleling his blue. That had made him smile, smile and wink at her.

She had wanted to tell him that they say a lot of things and she doubts that half of them are true. And she couldn't peg down where the temper came from.

_Slice._

She remembers their first kiss. It was the kind of kiss, awkward in all the wrong ways, with noses slightly bumped and lips pursed shut. But a kiss it was. And she remembers, it was after a Quidditch match, and he had won, saved the team and led them to typical victory, and she had just been compelled to kiss him.

In her mind it, it should have been utterly romantic.

And it had been. Just not in the way she had imagined. She had pictured heart-stopping, maddening pleasure and desire. Instead, she had found butterflies and a knot the size of her fist taking residence in her stomach. That,and the most beautiful sense of promise.

_Dice_.

She watches the knife squish the berry, neatly, perfectly, and the leafy green stem fall off.

She feels a wife of Henry VIII; just waiting to place her head on the chopping block.

_Slice. Dice. _

She knows. Deep down, she knows. She will say yes.

_Slice. Dice. _

_Slice. Dice. _

Her fingers stained red, the knife continues to fall.

She can feel that age-old fear curling up with a bit of sadness and she wonders when it all began to feel so wrong.

_Slice dice slice dice slice dice slice _

She has lived a life of following the rules and wonders why this one she can't seem to abide by.

She can't be Petunia. She can't be her mother. She can't talk baby talk and spend the rest of her days nursing infants and cleaning up other people's shit.

This is the clichéd first day of the clichéd rest of her life.

_Slice dice slice dice slice dice slice slice slice slice slice_

She'll never get to call the world her own.

_Slice._

_Dice._

She drops the knife with a clang and stares at the mountain of sliced strawberries and fights the desire to laugh.

Wiping her hands on the white towel next to her, she leaves it there, stained and pink, shouts a farewell and walks straight out the door.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

There's a _crack_ and there she is. Staring up at a house she has never seen before. And for a second there, she is held motionless by a strange curiosity, an intent sense of study.

She hears shuffling footsteps on the porch before her, a muttering and then she sees the glowing. A tip of a wand illuminated against the night.

She can see him outlined against his front door. The dim porch lights outlining his body for her; the glow of his wand painting his face's silhouette.

"Lily?" She can hear the strained shock plain in his voice. She watches him climb down the steps, and there he is. Rumpled in a white T-shirt almost too small, stretched tight across his chest, and a pair of jeans, threatening to unravel upon his skin.

There he is. Remus Lupin.

He continues speaking: jaw clenched uncomfortably, face tight, eyes utterly unreadable. "What are you doing here? You – you shouldn't even be here. It's too dangerous these days…"

She glances back, eyes scanning the sky, spotting the near half-moon decorating the night.

"Why? It won't be a full moon for awhile. Certainly not tonight."

She watches his frown melt into a smirk, amusement clear in the upturn of his lips. She almost expects him to laugh. "I wasn't referring to myself," he says dryly, "I was referring more to the whole current state of things. You know, what with You-Know-Who and all that…"

She blushes. And realizes this. And blushes just a little bit more.

She's not sure why it embarrasses her so to have him know that she finds him dangerous. But it does. And she thanks the night it's dark out on the front stoop of his house.

"Oh. Right."

And there is silence. A stilted silence, made all the heavier by the humid summer air.

"Why did you come here?" His voice is soft, barely above a whisper, but the look on his face makes her believe she just heard him yell.

"I…well. I, uh, I haven't really seen, or even, well, heard from you in quite awhile. I mean, we were writing each other for a bit there, but well, yeah, it just seemed like awhile…and I just thought I'd stop on by." She knows that she's still blushing, and worse yet, knows that he can see it.

"You thought you'd stop on by?" He asks wryly, and she is reminded of the dangerous sarcasm of Remus Lupin. The dry tone, the deadpan deliver. The vaulted eyebrow and dangerous smirk. Yes, she decides, he is dangerous. Far too dangerous for his own good, and better yet, for hers.

"Yes. Yes, I did." And the silence returns, creeping in on the wings of the mosquitoes circling around their bodies, waiting, just waiting, to go in for the kill.

She can feel her heart pounding as she watches him stand there, self-assured and oddly casual. She can feel the pinpricks all around her, goosebumps surfacing on her skin although the heat.

She is thinking of that night and earlier today; thinking of the feel of him beneath her and the strawberry beneath the blade.

"Remus…" She merely breathes his name, not sure of what else to say.

This, this is desire. This is lust. This is wrong.

"Lily." He lacks her breathy tone, lacks the falling syllables. He states her name. Looking her right in the face.

She can't quite meet his eyes. She has a feeling, a distant feeling, that if she does, she will be sucked right in.

She notices the house is dark, dark but the light of the porch and his still glowing wand. She fears they are alone, alone in the woods of his house.

"Are your parents home?" Her voice lowered, conspiratorial.

"Asleep." She can hear the question in his voice, and doesn't dare attempt to answer it.

"Oh. Yes. It is late, I imagine. I – I should be going. Nice…talking to you." And she turns, not sure where she is walking since she merely Apparated here in the first place.

"Lily…" His voice freezing her, half-turned away from him. "Why did you come here?" She could never figure out how such a quiet voice could possess so much authority, but it always has. He has a voice that could freeze her into place, set her right on fire.

She looks back at him.

A dark smile crosses her face, just for an instant, and the jazz tune from the car enters back into her head. The crescendo of the piano and the long, lone wail of a dying horn.

She is off the beat.

"Salvation."

He knits his brows, confusion clear upon his face, but he lets it pass. She watches empathy shade his features, and just as quickly as it colored him, it is erased. And what replaces it strikes her to the quick. Feral and primeval and nothing proper a man should have upon his face when gazing into the eyes of a woman. Into the eyes of this woman.

She doesn't move. And either does he. Instead, they stare. And she can feel her breathe quicken, her pulse rise. She can hear the thumping of her heart and can't seem to keep the rhythm.

"Just ask…" She whispers. And the spring is snapped and he stalks forward, eyes never leaving her own. She stands there, still turned half away from him, when his large hands grip her small shoulders and suddenly she is flush against him.

She likes to think he started the kiss. He is the one who gripped her neck, fingers caught almost painfully in her hair, and pressed his mouth to hers.

She moans, gripping his t-shirt tight between her fingers, knuckles white. His hand slides lower, grasping her ass, grinding himself down into her.

All she sees is red.

He is rough, the man with a soft voice that echoes through her skull like the loudest of shouts. He pushes her and she falls to the earth, fallen leaves tangling with auburn hair, twigs scratching along with his fingers along her exposed back.

She can hear the trees sway in the wind, can see the half-formed moon peaking out through the canopy of leaves, black not green in the night.

It's skin and sweat and dirt and green and in the back of her mind she recognizes that they haven't spoken a word, not whispered or panted or moaned a name, a word since the start of the fall.

She understands now what it means to be beyond words. Beyond thought.

She feels her jeans slide down past her hips. Knows that it's her hands undoing another's belt buckle.

This, this is desire. This is lust. This is right.

She lies on her back with dirt etched along her spine, staring up and up and up. And as he enters her she can still see the black cross etched across the blood red sky.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**


	5. 5: Think Straight

**A 12-Step Program**

**Disclaimer: **The first rule of fanfiction is, I, the author, do not own the rights to the characters mentioned below or the Harry Potter empire. The second rule of fanfiction is I DO NOT own the rights to Harry Potter. Third rule of fanfiction, the song lyrics opening this chapter are PJ Harvey's. Not mine.The fourth rule,the lyrics featured in the body of this story belong to the genius Leonard Cohen, not me. Fifth rule, this disclaimer is a blatant rip-off of both the novel and film _Fight Club _and was not some genius invention of my own. And the sixth, and final rule: if you are reading this, you must review. (I'm only kind of kidding).

**Rated: **R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **I just want to say thanks again to everyone who has showed an interest in this story. I really am flattered. Somewhere along the line, this silly little story became me posturing on the realities of romance and what happens in a relationship when the two people involved begin to grow up. I guess that's the idea behind this story. That, and the whole concept of bridging the gap between childhood and adulthood. It's easier said than done. I don't know why I felt the need to explain this, but apparently I did…and well, there it is. This chapter is a bit shorter than the others have been, but I like it all the same. And on another note, I shall be returning to school very shortly. Which means the updates here will be sporadic at best. I have set up a webpage that you can access from my profile here and I shall do my best to keep it up to date. Thank you once again, and I hope you enjoy this chapter as well.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

**5. Think Straight**

And when I watch you move  
And I can't think straight  
And I am silenced  
And I can't think straight

And it's the best thing  
It's the best thing  
The best thing  
Such a beautiful feeling

- _"Beautiful Feeling" PJ Harvey_

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She hasn't been able to catch her breath in the past three hours. In and out it races, light pants and a racing heart.

She aches the right way in all the wrong places.

She lies, motionless and still, atop her bed, still made from the previous morning. The ceiling fan beats an angry tempo; the motor purring a broken song. The hot air circulating merely makes the sweat drip down her skin as opposed to cool, melt, evaporate.

She refuses to shut her eyes.

She can hear the nightly insect symphony and the warbling croaking of a frog outside her open window. The hoot of an owl and the occasional rustle of wind against the trees, leaves meeting leaves and their whispering friction.

She is still wearing the clothes from earlier. There is still dirt under her nails. And she assumes the leaves are still entwined in the tangled mess that is her hair.

Parchment drifts to the floor, floating briefly on the humid night breeze. She listens as it hits the floorboards, a soft, settling sound, and she imagines that James's letter is among the scraps, the spilled slips, the scattered thoughts.

She sighs.

She has always carried a vision of herself, tucked away in the deep recesses of her mind only she could pick.

This really isn't it.

Whenever she would picture herself, Lily Evans, as a woman, she would see herself standing there, tall, proud and erect, chin in the air and eyes staring even higher. She has always pictured herself standing at the base of a staircase, hair up in an elegant chignon, arms hanging about her sides, limp and strong and weak and poised. This, this, she has always imagined to be her battle stance. Ready for the world and every assault and sneak attack it could and would throw her way. She wonders if this means something.

She thinks of this now, conjuring the image in her mind, as she lies there, flat on her back and staring at a swirling fan, eyes glassy and mouth slightly open.

She is a fish out of water. But rather than flopping around and gasping for that final breath, she'll just wait. Wait and eventually she'll be gutted or simply stop. Working, ticking, breathing.

She feels a lone tear slip from the corner of her eye. Feels its wet track across her temple, getting lost in the beginning of red hair.

"What have I done?" She whispers the question into the empty room, receiving the hollow croak, the restless rustle, the strains of a nocturnal orchestra for answer.

"What have I done…"

She has always thought it silly to ask questions you already know the answer to. But she's beginning to know the solace of asking the questions you can't seem to answer out loud.

"What have I done…"

They write stories and plays and sing songs and shoot movies about women like her. The women who have the world and the love of their lives trapped in their tiny, trembling hands, yet let their fingers slip and it all falls through the cracks of an empty fist in the name of temptation, lust and something she can't quite recognize but seems to know all too well.

A scarlet woman. A temptress. An adulterer. A strumpet, a tart, a slut, a slag, a whore. A homewrecker, a heartbreaker, a hellion. They all jump on the tracks of a train and meet their doom thirty miles per hour or their husbands strangle them swiftly,silentlyin the night. They sell their souls for the sake of pleasure and watch their lives slip away under the memories of days when they had once had it all.

That is how it is supposed to go. That is how they tell it. That is how they teach it.

But she wonders, why, amidst the humidity and the guilt, she can't get the mental image of Remus Lupin coming inside of her out of head. Or why the flush that creeps along her cheeks every now and again has nothing to do with the temperature of the room but rather with an altogether different airless heat of the night.

There will be no morning after kiss or post-coital cuddling. Fuck and run, in its most literal sense. They fucked, she adjusted her clothes, and ran.

She's not sure when this concept became oddly comforting, strangely fulfilling. And it scares her.

For just a handful of minutes tonight, she had felt full, figuratively and physically. And she can't seem to shake that single recollection.

She thinks she might be hollow. Or might just be unfeeling. Or feeling far too much.

This. This is loneliness.

With a shuddering exhalation, she pulls herself off the bed and moves to the record player in the corner of the room. Gently, she drops the needle down onto the record and watches as it begins to spin. Clutching the stand, white-knuckled, as the first strains of a song begin.

She turns the volume down, down, down to just a volume scarcely audible to her. And just as silently, just as swiftly, she lowers herself back down onto the bed. Hair spread about her upon the pillows, hiding a teddy bear from a childhood that is beginning to feel more and more distant and unfamiliar. Her head is turned to the window and her legs are sprawled, ankles gently banging against the edge of the bed.

Softly, she begins to sing, only certain syllables making it into the night.

"We met when we were almost young…deep in the green lilac park…"

She closes her eyes, feather-light; she can still see the light of the night through.

"You held on to me like I was a crucifix…as we went kneeling through the dark…"

Her voice is broken, the song coming out in whispered tones, matching the muted volume of the record player in the corner.

And she lays and she listens, silencing herself as the music floats about the room.

Quietly, always quietly, she resumes her song.

"For now I need your hidden love…I'm cold as a new razor blade…"

She pretends she can see the tree outside her window. Pretends she can see her pot of red flowers perched upon the windowsill.

"You left when I told you I was curious…I never said that I was brave…"

Suddenly she's fourteen again and all legs and arms with no curves to smooth them out. Wild red hair spread out across the grass, arm stretched across her forehead, shielding the sun from her eyes. And the world, it was perfect. The lake had been shimmering in the perfect sun and the grass had prickled the back of her neck. Yes, she had thought. Yes, this is what it means to be alive.

"So long, Marianne…it's time that we began to laugh and cry…and cry and laugh…about it all again…"

Slowly she notices her shoulders are shaking. Her face is damp, and she raises a hand to her cheek, feeling the spilled tears there. Her shoulders are shaking and her face is damp and there is the largest smile upon her face.

She isn't sure if she has been laughing or crying or crying or laughing. About it all again.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

As sunrays dance their way through an open window, Lily wonders if she ever slept it all. The clock reads roughly six AM, and she knows she was still awake at five, lingering in that strange semi-conscious realm.

Today is what they fondly call another day. Last night is what they nostalgically call the past.

It is six in the morning and Lily Evans is getting out of bed without the typical grumbling and half-intelligible cursing.

Today is what they call another day.

She rises from the bed and picks a dead leaf off her pillow, ignoring the sudden lurch in her stomach.

The house is silent. Not a soul rustling about. Suddenly she has the _Night Before Christmas _streaming through her head, mutterings of lack of creatures stirring and the like. Suddenly she is six years old wearing red footie pajamas and sneaking about the house in the still nighttime hours of the morning,bursting with curiosity to see what Santa has brough this year. She turns a corner, passes Petunia's closed doorand she wonders what the hell is wrong with her.

It is Saturday, she remembers. Saturday. Her parents will sleep until at the very earliest eight. And Petunia no longer lives there. Lily almost misses her.

Nothing stays the same.

Closing the bathroom door, Lily realizes she is an utter creature of habit. She turns the shower on, listens to the old pipes creak in protest and with a burst, cold water comes spitting out.

She turns back to the mirror, and nearly laughs.

She has a crown of leaves about her head, interspersed with twigs. There's a smear of dirt across her cheek and she only has one earring.

Her jeans are still unbuttoned. Her fucking jeans are still unbuttoned. And the hem of her underwear is peaking through.

She lifts her shirt above her head. Unclasps the bra behind her back, and lets it fall into the sink.

Bite marks. All she sees are bite marks. Hickeys adorn her pale, pale neck and bite marks dance across her chest, creating a pattern, a design, a constellation all their own.

Scratches on her shoulders. A dirty fingerprint on her breast.

She imagines this is how one would look after being mauled by a vicious animal.

She slides her open jeans down her hips and lets them fall to the pink rug on the floor. In slow motion, she steps out of them. Still staring into the mirror, her underwear joins them on the ground.

She is in her bathroom. The bathroom of her childhood, with the pink wallpaper on the walls and the ballet slipper tissue box. She is in her bathroom with the pink monogrammed towels and fuzzy pink rugs. She is in her bathroom. And she is a mess. Hickeys all over her neck, bite marks peppering the mess. Clear handprints bruised into her hips, bruises on her inner thighs.

Yes. There on her hips is yet another souvenir from Remus Lupin. His handprints. Fingers stretched across the width of her hipbones, each and every finger visible. Ten fingers, two handprints.

She bends down and pulls her wand out of her discarded jeans pocket. She whispers a simple healing spell and erases the mess about her neck and chest. She erases the bruises on her thighs, the scratches on her shoulders.

She erases all but the handprint on her right hip. She traces the fingers slowly, reverently. And steps into the shower.

She closes her eyes and lets the hot water hit her. Hot, hot, scalding hot, stinging her skin with the merest touch. The steam rises up and around her, fogging up the very mirror she had been staring into.

She lets the water hit her, eyes screwed up tight. And she cannot help but recall.

Recall the night before in between this, her morning routine.

She grabs the soap and works it into a lather. And there she is again.

She, completely naked. He, clothed, but for the jeans slid down his hips. Her bare breasts pressed against the threadbare cotton of his t-shirt.

She rinses off and reaches for the shampoo. The fragrant scent wafting up and out and through the bathroom.

His ragged breathing in her ear, not making a single sound, until with a throaty moan he had come, hard, shuddering and shaking above her, and for the first time since the furious coupling had begun, she felt a chill, a shiver making its way through her limbs cooling her, icing her ardor for once.

Shampoo dripping down her face, she steps back under the falling water. And rinses, rinses, rinses.

She had taken a deep breath, closed her eyes for but a second, and thought.

She turns the water off, and stands there. In the empty shower. The occasional drip making its way down onto her.

Yes. This is what it means to be human.

Her hand makes its way to herright hip again. And stops.

Yes. This is what it means to be alive.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

At eight-thirty Mrs. Evans has breakfast on the table. Eggs and bacon; muffins and sausage. It's a Saturday/Sunday thing. The only time she ever cooks like this. A tradition she has held for as long as Lily can remember.

She sits down, muttering a distant "good morning," and pours herself a cup of tea.

Her father is reading _The Daily Prophet_ and she tries to ignore the front-page. She is positive only bad news could possibly be stated there. It makes her smile a little, though. Her father, a Muggle, reading a Wizarding newspaper. Petunia had hated it, saying they only needed one freak in the family, but her dad had claimed he just wanted to stay informed. And informed he was. Half the time he knew more about the Wizarding world than she herself did.

They eat in silence. Her mother reading _The London Times_, her father _The Daily Prophet_ and Lily just staring outside into the bright blue sky.

She can hear a jet flying above their house.

When she thinks about him, Remus Lupin, airplanes come to mind.

She's only ridden one once.

She has always told herself and everyone and anyone who would listen how she hates to fly. Not sure why. But Lily will stand there and vehemently deny her love to fly, whether it be on broomstick or jumbo jet. She has always felt that it fit into her odd array of already existing neuroses and added it unconsciously to the collection.

She really doesn't hate to fly. On the contrary, she loves it, adores it. She loves the airport, the hustle and bustle and the utter mystery behind the person you're standing, sitting next to. She loves the take off, the pressure in one's head, the ears, the sense you're underwater as opposed to being in the air. And then, you look down. You look down and you see the world you have just abandoned and the sky and the blue and maybe a cloud or two you are blasting off towards and into and the unknown that seemingly lies behind it. You look down, and you see the houses, the tiny houses, looking as though maybe only dolls live inside, like there's a turkey roasting in that oven you can't see, the cars seemingly unmoving down tiny strips of gray asphalt. You look down, and you see an entire world, an entire collection of people in little squares, perfect little squares, streets she can't name boxing them out and creating a grid. Connecting her to you. You look down and you ask yourself why the world can't get along if all we're really living in are tiny, perfect squares.

Then you remember as you travel a little higher up that the edges are sharp and the squares aren't squares and it's not really a grid, but rather a menagerie, a shelter full of cages and boxes, some with the peepholes and the air-holes and the gaps larger than others.

Take a deep breath. You're in a perfect square.

She clears her plate, dropping it into the sink.

It's only when you can look down it all seems to be alright. It's when you look down, flying through the air, that you can call it beautiful.

She picks up a dishtowel and the wet plates before her.

James comes home tomorrow.

Her mother begins to hum as she washes the remaining dishes. Lily imagines she already knows the words.

She dries the frying pan in her hand. And thinks. Yes, she's in a perfect square. But last night she saw it from above.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**


	6. 6: Impossible Dream

**A 12-Step Program**

**Disclaimer: **"We're alike, me and cat. A couple of poor nameless slobs." On that note, courtesy of the always fantastic and never dull _Breakfast at Tiffany's_, do you really think a poor slob such as myself actually owned the rights to _Harry Potter_? Or better yet, to PJ Harvey's lyrics? The answer: no siree. Please, do not sue me.

**Rated: **R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **Oh, wow. It took a lot longer to get this chapter out than I expected. I am back at school, and have been since the last week of August. It's made writing slightly more difficult, what with the insane balancing act of academics and a decent social life. But I'm trying. And I am surprised I made it to chapter six. I've had the end of this chapter written since the beginning of this story. The rest, well that's a slightly different story. But, well, this, right here, good friends, is the halfway point for our protagonist. Hard to believe. There will be, God willing, six more chapters after this. And I want to thank you all again for appreciating this story and not thinking of me as some head case who should be on some comfy leather couch as opposed to writing this. I am very, very excited to finish this, and on that note, here is chapter six.

And on second thought: Ohhh, I am blushing. I loaded the wrong version of this chapter. Only a few typos ironed out and the like. So yes. Here is Chapter Six. Part Deux.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

**6. Impossible Dream**

Night and day  
I dream of  
Making love  
To you now baby  
Love making  
On screen  
Impossible dream  
And I have seen  
The sunrise over the river  
The freeway  
Reminding of  
This mess we're in

- _"The Mess We're In" PJ Harvey and Thom Yorke _

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

The red hair curls, and the red hair falls. She bats a sweaty hand at the hairs that stick on the back of her neck. She'd rather they would stand on end.

Sweat and frizz and damp backbones. These are the things summer girls are made of.

She knows there must be some intrinsic reasoning lying in the first three letters of the word 'humidity.' Hum. Humming. Hum. For all around her, the air seems to breathe a musical life all its own. Humming. Humming. Hum.

Not the erratic, hurried beat of a hummingbird's wings, but rather the stifled, stuffy sound of music two doors down, leaking out through cracks in the woodwork and the casing of closed doors. The air can't crackle, so instead it slithers, slithers and writhes and arches itself against a barrier of moisture it can't ever seem to crack.

They say it's the warmest summer on record. But they said that last year as well. And the summer before that. The weathermen might just be the most hyperbolic men she has ever seen.

They were there, on the TV, slightly lost in snowy static, but there nonetheless. Mrs. Evans was laid out on the couch, swollen ankles propped on a tilting footstool, a fan whispering, whirring beside her, a crumpled Japanese fan in hand. Lily had been due two weeks ago. Lily has always been slightly overdue. And they, the balding weathermen, hiding the facts beneath glaringly obvious toupees, said that this particular day in April, the day that Lily was born, was the hottest day that year.

It was an easy lie. But that's what they're paid to do.

But curiously and peculiarly, every single birthday that rolled along the roulette of three hundred and sixty five landed on a day devoid of cloud and scorching with sun. That single day in April: the random hot, damp oasis in the struggling start of spring. Every year for eighteen strong, the mercury has never dropped below the eighty degree marking on the cold glass tube of a thermometer.

Fire, fire everywhere. But not a lick that burns.

She wonders if it is possible to move forward while still trapped in the error of one's ways.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She doesn't know why, but she has never been able to picture herself as an old woman.

She sits there, among the greenery, the growing flowers and the wilting tulips, heads hanging low in the surprising early morning heat. Red and pink, yellow and white. The green stems curving gracefully, supinely; heads of the flowers grazing the bottom of the chipped green bench. Lily picks flakes of paint off and watches them fall onto cracked concrete.

It's an old Muggle bus stop. The line closed a year or five ago. It really doesn't matter. What does matter is the fact buses no longer travel up and down this road, lines once painted down the middle blurred into a broken haze. But the green bench still sits there. Among tulips some kind soul planted seasons ago.

She thinks it might have been last summer. Last summer when James decided this would be their spot. She thinks it might have worked better had it been spontaneous, if they had some sort of history here, among the spring flowers and decaying depot.

They had stopped here once. Just once. He needed a place to apparate home, and she had remembered this station. She remembered she used to take it into town with her mother and Petunia to visit their great-aunt in London. The woman had never married. She didn't own cats. She didn't fit into any sort of cliché belonging to an unmarried woman socially past her prime. And no one quite knew what to do with that. Or with her. Of course she served as a hero of sorts for Lily. Of course.

She died the year Lily turned sixteen.

Lily had taken James here. He had laughed at the idea of a bus missing beds and multiple levels, minus people racing back and forth like ants caged in their tiny farm. He didn't understand the concept of speed limits and that a person might have to wait more than a millisecond to catch a ride. It had amused him. He was amused by the culture shock. And she, she was drawn to the nostalgia.

They sat on the bench. Holding hands and glowing in that end- of- the-honeymoon glow newfound couples earnestly adopt. They hadn't been dating long. They had known each other for even less.

He was fascinated by her childhood stories. Fascinated by the foreign words she effortlessly dropped into conversation, speaking of television and record players, _Wizard of Oz_ and Katherine Hepburn. She was a science experiment. And he was her control group.

It's early. Sunrise early. James told her he would meet her here this morning, told her in the letter sent and arrived two days ago. He was home from the beach, walked across his threshold last night and was planning on seeing her this morning. Bright and early.

She watches the sun crest the horizon. The light rises over the tops of trees, falling on the empty bench beside her.

It's times like these she longs for a good girl friend. Some one she can spend her listless evenings with, laying across her pink bedspread, hair spread out and down, giggling over the latest record, the newest heartthrob. Sobbing over drama only time can heal; over heartbreak sappy songs can stitch back into one.

She twines a strand of red hair around her finger, staring at her red plastic flip flops.

This, this is loneliness.

A part of her is screaming just fuck it, fuck it all, it doesn't matter what the world thinks; it doesn't matter that the world doesn't love you or, worse yet, even bother to hate you. You just float. You float from one event to the other, one day to the next and you wonder what the big deal is about this thing called life. You wonder why its such an effort to feel something more than boredom or the desire to break free and run, run, run to days past this one, days where the world is yours and you are perfect and you can throw your arms up into the air, knowing you've finally crossed that finish line.

She hears a crack. And there he is. Tall and tan with a mess of dark, dark hair.

Yes. Yes. He will do just fine. He will.

She rises to greet him, moving one foot in front of the other. And there he is and there she is. She's in his arms and kissing him, the fairy-tale sweet kisses little girls dream about late at night when they should be reciting their prayers.

She wonders if she is running down the right track.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

Sirius stands there. A bottle of Ogden's Old Firewhiskey lethargically slipping from his left hand.

"Lily…Lils…" His words slurring together, his right hand desperately trying to point towards her. "You gotta…I'm telling you…" And he's giggling, Sirius Black is giggling. "You gotta try some of this shite…" For a second she thinks he means the whiskey, and almost has to laugh. But then she understands.

And she sees the pipe passing from Peter to James and knows she's falling, slipping down the rabbit hole. And where she'll find herself come morning only time can tell.

The night had started out simply enough. The owl crashing into her closed window and five minutes later depositing an invitation on her bed.

Frank Longbottom and Alice Manchester would like to invite you to join in the celebration of their engagement. Frank Longbottom and Alice Manchester would like you to know they are getting married.

Alice Manchesterwould likeyou to know she's now Mrs. Longbottom.

Lily has never heard a more tragic change in name.

There was to be a picnic that evening in the field behind Frank's mother's house. Food and friends galore. And in the ugly face of looming war and doom that everyone, ranging from her own father to James Potter, was talking about, this seemed a nice distraction.

She wonders if it makes her a bad person. She hasn't given a single thought since the end of school. Hasn't devoted a tiny lapse in attention towards wizarding affairs and the fact the world as she knows it could end in the hands of an ambiguous cloaked figure and his silent followers.

James had picked her up at five. They had arrived by six. The picnic tables groaned under the weight of pies and pastries, fruit and fish. A fire danced in the center of it all, tiny fairies flitting against the sky, trapped inside the trees, lighting them up like the twinkling Christmas lights her neighbors decorate their front porch with obnoxiously all year-round.

Frank and Alice stood there, in the setting sun. They stood there with the roaring fire as a backdrop, a fierce portrait of wedded bliss.

Lily brought them a single daffodil as an engagement present. She had picked it at the bus stop that very morning while meeting James.

And somehow, after a dinner consisting of too many courses and rounds of drinks that had turned into simply a race to see who can get drunkest fastest,she hadfound herself in the edge of the woods, Gwendolyn drunk and hanging off her arm.

"Lily…I so mean it…it's fucking brilliant…"

She watches James inhale, long and deep, and watches the purple smoke leaking from his lips.

And there's Remus. Tall and slightly tanner, back curved and leaning against a tree. A small content smile gracing his lips, his hair masking his eyes.

She watches her boyfriend take another hit. His eyes slip closed and his head leans back.

"Yeah. Alright…" she whispers, not quite sure who she's given her acquiescence. Gwendolyn giggles next to her, muttering about the last time she smoked this stuff.

Lily twirls the pipe between her fingers, wondering for just a second why she's doing this, and wraps her lips around the stem.

All her life, she has only wanted to make mistakes. This seems like one she can handle.

She breathes in deep, trying to trap the smoke there, send it down, down, down into her lungs. She coughs. Someone smacks her on her back. She can hear the laughing. And brings it back up to her lips once more.

Her toes are tingling. Her eyes won't seem to open.

She suddenly wants to laugh. But all she hears are the tinny ringing of bells, the jingling, jangling echoing through her skull. Sleigh bells and church bells and tiny bells that dance on a leash. She can hear them all. And they make her want to smile.

Her eyes finally peel on open. And all she sees are sparkles. Fairies falling from the trees and pixie dust raining down from Never Never Land. She wonders if she spins fast enough if she'll be able to fly, fly, fly all the way to Big Ben and stand on the hands of time and feel them slip and slide under her command.

Instead, she gazes straight ahead. Watches James curled up in the fetal position on the ground, laughing, in hysterics, and Sirius trying to wrestle him even farther into the ground.

She has lost a hold on the sea of faces. The people that once moved now seem to dance and flip and tumble, circling, circling, circling the rising flames of a fire which glows blue now instead of red.

Blue, yes, blue. Blue is all she seems to see. The trees are sapphire and the sky is inky midnight. Blue is all she seems to see. And wonders if it's all she's felt.

And he's still there. Stationary and still. She wonders if he's the only object at rest in this rotating, spinning world.

It's always Remus. It always comes back to him.

She moves, her feet feeling as though they are gliding on ice, daring her to press too hard, waiting to swallow her whole, swallow her into an icy death. She moves to him and she likes to think he smiles.

She always thought that when in love, words wouldn't be necessary. And here, they're not. She merely looks at him, memories of their last rendezvous melting through her muddled memory, wanting him back inside, and instantaneously understands the meaning of desire.

She moves, she skates, she slips deeper into the woods, deeper into the blue.

She feels a hand upon her waist, pressing itself into her, melding with her skin.

She can hear the bells ringing in her ears. And wonders this time, as she slips down and under, why they sound like sirens.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

They never talked about the night at Frank and Alice's.

James had been the victim of mind-altering substances mixed with alcohol. The result had been regurgitation. And subsequent blacking-out.

She imagines that's for the best.

But now, it's Sunday night. And she's lying in his room.

He came to her window hours ago, hours after her own parents had turned off all the lights, inside and out. The street lamps glowed and the traffic stilled, and he was tapping at her window.

She imagines this is romance.

They flew to his house. Entered his room.

She imagines what they did you would call 'making love.'

And now, now she lies there next to him, the room too dark for her to see his face. She listens to the quieting of her heart, the racing beats closing in on the finish line, calming, settling.

She hears him inhale, deeply, next to her. She feels the bed shift underneath her as she imagines him turning to face her. She continues to stare straight ahead, counting the heartbeats as they come.

"Who other than me have you slept with?"

There never is a prelude for things like this. For questions like that.

Her heart is off, stampeding following his gunshot of a question. She wonders if she is as wild-eyed as she feels. Deer in the headlights, deer in the hunter's gaze. Deer in the crosshairs.

"What?" The only word she's able to muster as she turns to him, still unable to see much more than the strange reflection off his glasses. She idly wonders when he put them back on. They weren't there a minute ago.

"Who, that is, other than me have you shagged?" She doesn't like the nonchalance of his tone. She doesn't like the images that surface in her head at the query. "I mean, I obviously wasn't your first…so, who, other than me, have you shagged?"

The sigh of relief silently courses through her, her breath slowing, a smile forming.

He doesn't know.

_He doesn't know, he doesn't know, he doesn't know._

He doesn't know. Anything.

It finally dawns on her now that the two of them never had "the talk" before they started dating. Before the first time they slept together. It was an accident. The two just strangely fell into bed, a tangled mess of sticky sheets and inflexible limbs, lame attempts at talking dirty and romantic declarations, fumbling muttering of spells and counter-curses. They had only been dating for three weeks. According to friends and the world alike, three weeks is a touch too soon. Probably not the best laid plans. With absolutely no pun intended.

He doesn't know. Anything. About her.

"Well, there was only one." She runs her hand through her hair, already tangled and messy, her fingers finding a way to complicate it all the more. "He was…an old friend. Family friend. We always used to kind of flirt, and well, one day, it was in the summer, and we just, you know. Started fooling around. And then we were dating. And then we were…shagging."

She doesn't like this. Rehashing of loves with the current one in her life.

"Did he have a name?" She can hear the strange ironic tone behind the words and wonders if he's jealous.

"David. His name was, is, David." She's not sure why she felt the urge to whisper the name. But she did, the name barely audible as she speaks into the pillow instead of into him.

"David…" He utters the name as though tinged in corruption and everything seedy and wrong with the world. He speaks the name as though it is one of the three curses they shall never name or with the same distaste she can imagine her mother saying "God-damn, mother-fucking shit-eating arsehole."

She would ask him if he was jealous, but she already knows the answer. Hearing it aloud would be too much.

He's jealous of a former lover. She can't even imagine how he'd react to a current.

She rolls over to the other side, her bare back to him. She can feel his fingers there, tracing up and down her spine.

She closes her eyes and hears James repeat his tone, repeat his inflection, only this time the name's not David. No. Thumping over and over again in her head is another name.

She feels him kiss her shoulder, his arm wrapping around her stomach, possession lingering in his grasp.

"_Imperio." "Crucio." "Avada Kedavra." "God-damn, mother-fucking, shit-eating arsehole."_

"_David."_

Wait a beat. Skip a beat. Feel you heart jump and beat.

"_Remus." _

She counts to ten and prays for sleep to claim her.

"_Remus."_

All she hears is static.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**


	7. 7: The Girl Keeps Singing

**A 12-Step Program**

**Disclaimer: **It is the holidays, so this right here is in the spirit of giving, not the spirit of taking. I am not taking ownership of _Harry Potter_ or anything that belongs to JK herself. Oh, and on that note, I'm not PJ Harvey either. Rats.

**Rated: **R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **Happy Holidays! I know, it's been a goodly length of time since I reared my head and posted a chapter. But the wait makes it all that much better, right? Right? I will try to be better, I promise that much. I am off for almost a month, which hopefully will translate into much writing on my part. Meh. We will just have to wait and see. What we do have here to see is Chapter Seven, five more left after this. I enjoy writing this, I really do. And I have had the ending written since the beginning and I don't think anyone really knows how desperately I wish to churn all this out for you to read. I guess you could call this chapter more action, plot-driven, if even. But I guess when it comes down to it, this story isn't one of plot and action, but rather of a slow evolution. Alright, I'll shut up now. Here is Chapter Seven. Have a great holiday if you don't hear from me sooner. Oh, and PS, reviews make great, inexpensive Christmas presents ;)

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**7. The Girl Keeps Singing**

And I'm right on time  
And the birds keep singing  
And you're right on line  
And the bells keep ringing  
And the battle is won  
And the planes keep winging  
And I'm right on time  
One day there'll be a place for us  
And the girl keeps singing

- _"A Place Called Home" PJ Harvey _

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

"You hear the news?"

The day is cloudy and overcast. The trees hang heavy, no breeze passing throughto ruffle the overripe green leaves. Instead they hang, weighed down with the dew from the night before.

It is morning, neither early nor late, but still the start of the day.

"What news?"

James has an orange, almost peeled, in one hand and grimaces as it shoots him in the eye. He mutters one curse or the other and wipes his glasses off on the dirty paper napkin before him.

"James," she asks again, "what news?"

With his glasses in one hand, and an orange and its juice in the other, he looks at her and smiles. A smile so bright and so crooked one would think him drunk.

"We're at war, love."

He snatches a piece of bacon off the half-gone plate and crunches down.

She isn't sure what to say. She does know that in her mind he has a helmet on his head and a grenade at his side, a rifle fully loaded swung over his shoulder, with a smile that has "God Save the Queen" painted in the cracks.

She is dating General Patton. She might as well start preparing the bandages.

"What do you mean, 'we're at war?' What does that exactly mean?"

She knows that face. That face when a Quidditch match is just an hour off. He would sit there in the Great Hall, tapping his foot, his whole leg shaking. Always in motion, moving from here to there and back again. The excitement had been contagious. Like the flu. Even she had caught it, sneezing out gold and maroon school spirit right along with her infected class.

If that had been the influenza, she fears this might be the plague.

"It means," he rises from his chair, hands in his hair, both hands now on either side of her face, "my dear, it means we are at war. It is us against them and soon, soon it will be over and we'll never fear again."

She wonders if it is wrong that she never really feared in the first place. She wonders if it is wrong, this disengagement she has felt for what might be a little too long.

Despite it all, she can't name the fear creeping up her spine.

"Who…who's 'we'?"

He smiles just a little bit wider, his eyes sparkle just a little bit more, and she thinks, this is what it means to have found meaning in life. This is what it looks like to have found a purpose.

She doesn't want to hear what he has to say. She wants to be naïve and innocent and unaware. She wants him to stay with her, in the sun, planning adventures they'll never embark on and enjoying a summer of lemonade and bathing suits.

She watches it all fizzle and pop and his bright face comes into focus.

"They call themselves the Order of the Phoenix…"

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She sits in James's kitchen as he showers a floor above. She can hear the pipes whistling and the water running down.

She drums her fingers on the tabletop, replaying the earlier scene in her mind.

It's odd. Out of nowhere, she feels nothing.

Just empty. And a sad wilted beating of her heart. And she kind of wishes she belonged. And she really wishes she wasn't such an oddball, aloof in her own thoughts and not quite sure how it is that one relates to the rest of the world when it's hard to understand the beating of a heart that's slowing and racing all the more.

She closes her eyes for a brief second. Raises her hand to her head and holds it steady, steady, steady.

Sitting in his kitchen, she kind of wants to go home, to her home. And she knows it's not home she wishes to find; but rather silence. She craves it.

It is like school all over again. That desperate, end of the semester desire to just pack up and run, pack up and race back to the familiar and curl up and wait. Wait. Wait. Wait for life to begin.

And for a minute there, it is May again, early May of this past year. For a minute there, what seems to be an infinite hour of opportunity and sun and summer is stretching out open in front of her and she is going home, home from school, _home_ where everything is alright and everything is right. And just as soon as the feeling arrives, just like that day in May, it is pulled out from beneath her, the proverbial tablecloth beneath the priceless china. And she knows she is going home. But she doubts, she can remember the echoing doubt, that she would find what she was looking for. That same hollow disappointment pressing on her chest.

She had wanted to come home to a world that made sense and a world where she was everything she always dreamt of becoming. She had wanted to go to school to find that but had come up empty-handed with a single-sentence definition hung about her neck. She had wanted to come home to find it waiting for her, her world, laid out across her bed just like the days she would come home from school to find that her mother had gone shopping and a week's worth of new wardrobe was waiting for her, spread across the floral bedspread.

She doesn't even know anymore what it is she is looking for. She does know she had it once, maybe twice, maybe more than that. But she has held it in her hands and tried to cage it in her heart. And she always seems to be looking for it, whatever it is. Love? No. She can find that on her own. She can find that without a single thought.

She thinks they call it peace.

She wants to close her eyes and see nothing more than landscapes she can't understand but knows they are her own.

All she can see is gray.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

"So, you hear?" Lily has come to find it more irritating than intriguing that every person in her life starts an idea with a question as vacant and ambiguous as that.

"Hear what, Remus?" She would apologize for the harshness of her words, but really doesn't see a point. This is the first time the entire summer that they have sat and talked, sat and talked about real things instead of just launching into the physical and then quickly running from the impending guilt.

This is the first time since the close of the school year that they have sat and talked as opposed to fuck and run.

"The Ministry is finally taking an official stance against the Death Eaters and You-Know-Who. Issued a statement this morning."

_Love, we're at war. Sound the bugles. God Save the Motherfucking Queen. _

"Bloody brilliant."

She knows he is watching her out of the corner of his eye. That slant-vision reeking of judgment and thoughts she knows he is far too polite to ever voice.

He turns away, throws a rock straight ahead and watches it land in the murky pond before them. They are at a park, a strange little abandoned park wallowing with weeping willows and overgrown pussy willows.

Everything they refuse to say, the past events and actions, are inching their way out of the forest and threatening to throw themselves into the midst of their conversation.

She doesn't know why she came here today.

"You talked to James." He says it more as a statement than a question. She wonders if that means she has to answer.

She lies on her back, red hair, green grass. Red and green and red and green and even in the sticky afternoon heat of the summer she wishes it was December and she was bundled up in a winter coat and scarf descending the grand staircase among the holly and the ivy. Christmas sprit, warmth, comfort, safety, stasis. And love.

Love. Love. Love.

"What am I going to do with myself, Remus?"

He grants her a half-smile, amused confusion apparent in his eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, what am _I _going to do? James has this Order thing, and I imagine the three of you will follow right along with him, bringing justice to the world and whatever it is you do. What does that leave me with? Where do I go?"

The smile is gone, replaced by an unreadable expression. She shields her eyes from the sun and attempts to watch his face.

"Whoever said you couldn't join?"

"Whoever said I wanted to?"

"That's the message I was getting out of what you were saying." She hates his easy stoicism. The way he can speak in monotone yet convey so much. She'd call it repression but it just doesn't seem right. "But if that's not what you want…" And he trails off, eyes still on her.

"I just…I don't know. Alright? I don't know what I want. But I know this wasn't it. This was supposed to be our summer. It was supposed to be a summer with the five of us, you know? Just…doing what it is we do. Wasting time, getting wasted. We weren't supposed to have to care about anything. We were supposed to have until August, at the very earliest, to get our lives on the road and be forced to figure this kind of shit out. I am eighteen, Remus. I am eighteen and I am supposed to know what it is I want out of life."

"What is it that you want?" He says it so simply. As easy as "What's your name," or "Where have you been," "Where are you going?"

She closes her eyes. And opens them. Open and shut, open and shut. A flickering canopy of trees and slow sunlight dancing before her.

"Not this…" she whispers.

He chuckles, slow, dry and derisive.

"That's life, Lily. That is life. Our plans are constantly shit on, everything is always ruined, one way or another. Your just have to take that shit, and well…" he chuckles again, "garden with it. Grow something different, create something new. What else do we really have?"

She laughs.

**- - -**

**- **

**- - -**

"When did you become so bloody cynical?"

She doesn't even remember the preceding discussion that lead to this question. She does know that it snapped her out of her daze, and suddenly, for the first time in what seems like months, she is fully alert, fully attentive with James Potter. For once, she is truly, fully fired-up and set to scream.

"Cynical? You say it like it's the ultimate insult."

There they are. Standing in his backyard, him dressed in a black cloak, black shoes and she imagines black pants. Incognito. Undercover. Cloak and dagger at its finest.

She does not remember what she said to him. Doesn't remember what it is that set him off, lit the match and sparked the fuse, words like "cynical" thrown in her face as slurs.

"It's not exactly the most savory of personality traits. Even you have to admit that." Disdain, that's what they would call his tone. Disdainful. And contemptuous.

"No." She wants to throw them back at him, the insults, the sneering, the general rude behavior that defined their actions towards each other for the better portion of the first five years they were acquainted. But she won't. She can't. "Cynicism… it's realistic. How can you trust something as vague as human nature when half our population is being murdered simply because they don't possess the same familial background? Next-door neighbors are betraying each other just to stay in good with their respective sides. Best friends have become each other's own biggest enemy. There are the orphaned, the abandoned, the widowed, the dead. And for what? Some strange, crack-pot scheme by a Mudblood himself? And there is you, fresh out of school and still more a boy than a man and wanting to go out and challenge him. Yes, I am a cynical bitch. But in times like these, where our own bloody Ministry is too afraid to lift a fucking finger to help, you can't really afford to be otherwise." She takes a deep breath and tries to stop the tears pricking at her eyes. She doesn't know why she's about to cry; she doesn't like it.

She idly wonders where the passion in her voice came from, why the sudden conviction appeared.

For some reason, she doesn't think she is actually talking about Wizarding affairs. She isn't talking about the fate of their world, about battle and death.

She imagines a knife in the back is a knife in the back, whether the death is metaphorical or actual.

"You never used to be like that…" She hates that he sounds hurt. And she hates even more that it seems to affect her, in the wrong way.

"People change, James. People grow up. What? You really thought I'd be that silly fifteen year old girl forever?"

She listens to him sigh. "No, I suppose not. But I had hoped."

She doesn't know if she's going to cry or throw up.

She'll just fight instead. There is something about cruelty and coldness that keeps the real issues from ever reaching the forefront.

"What about you James? Huh? What about you? There's you, ready to pack it all up and go train to fight the bad guys and save the day. Do you not remember school, James? You were a clown. A clown and an athlete. Lord only knows where Dumbledore got it in his head to make you of all people Head Boy." She regrets it all the second the words fly out, the second his face falls.

"Is that what you really think of me, Lily? That I'm just some joker, some dim-witted prankster who would never really amount to nothing? Is that what you really think of me?"

She swallows, and hopes a bit of her pride slides down with it.

"No, no, James. Of course not. I…I'm sorry. I didn't –"

He puts a hand up, a silent command for her own silence. "No, no, Lily. You said what you said. I just…I really wanted your support on this. If that wasn't too much to ask." His sarcasm hurts, stings, sparks across her skin.

"Why this? Why do this?"

"Because I'm a clown and an athlete, Lily. Because I'm a smartass. Because I can't just rest at that. You of all people should know that. But then again, we might as well be strangers considering how we have been behaving as of late."

"James, please…"

"Please, what, Lily? Merlin, I don't even know you anymore. I thought you would be proud, I thought you would be excited." He pauses. He's hurt. And then again, so is she. "I thought you would do this with me."

There is a silence. A taut, tight silence strung with emotions that can't be told.

"It's not supposed to be like this, James. We're not supposed to be like this."

"No. But we are." He rifles a hand through his hair. "I have to go."

"Be careful tonight," she whispers, holding onto him for a second longer as he embraces her formally before taking flight.

She watches his retreating back. Watches as his body blends into the blue, the midnight sky claiming the trees, and slowly, with each and every step, him. Off on a mission. That's what he called it.

Peter Pan. All she can think of is Peter Pan. And Wendy. Dancing on the hands of Big Ben and claiming time as their own.

They argued. And it might have felt like two years ago. It might have felt the way it always did. Both of them flying at each other's throats, teeth bared and aiming for the jugular.

This time, this time it was different.

For once, they weren't arguing over who was better at Potions or who was entitled to the last dinner roll or whether or not Quidditch was indeed a subject of substance. No. Today they argued over something real, of life and of death, of human nature.

Today they were adults. And she doesn't think it was just pretend.

**- - -**

**-**

- - -

Time passes. James and her never discuss that night. For some reason she can't bear to bring it up, the idea turning her stomach. She wonders if he feels the same. Or if he is merely waiting for her to finally say something.

So much has gone unsaid. She wonders when they will arrive at the point where speaking is no longer necessary.

It is a week and a half after her fight with James and she finds herself asking if she is doing something ridiculously stupid.

There had been a day during that week and a half where she found herself alone. Where she found herself caught in the middle of something she is afraid to understand. She is between two men and between two worlds. She imagined she could anchor herself to one or the other, to him or the other, to childhood or the future.

She had decided in an instant and refuses to go back on it. And now, now she is walking down a hallway with her Marauders and wondering what she has signed up for.

During World War II they called it the War Effort. The women went to work while the men went off to war. She thinks this might be the same.

The Order of the Phoenix.

James is holding her hand and Remus's feet fall behind her. And there's a light at the end of the hallway, a light behind a closed door.

James gives her hand a squeeze as they arrive before the door. He steps back.

"You're not coming in with me?" He merely shakes his head.

Butterflies. It is so silly that they call them butterflies, the nerves that flit in the stomach. It almost sounds docile.

She nods, and turns the handle.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She signed her name on the dotted line and watched it go up in flames. She has never promised herself to anything before.

"Today is the first day of the rest of my life."

And for once she almost believes it.

The house is quiet when she gets home. She reminds herself to leaf through the paper in the morning to find a movie she can pretend she saw, a movie she can say she saw instead of signing her life away.

She stands in the entryway for just a moment. Long enough to watch her shadow grow long across the wood floor, the waxing moon glowing behind her. One hand on the banister and one foot on the stair. She stares ahead, deep into the heart of her home.

She isn't sure if laughter or tears are more appropriate. But there is a start, the start of a smile.

What is this utter terror, this extreme excitement?

It is life.

And that's all there is to say.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**


	8. 8: Like Lovers

**A 12 Step Program**

**Disclaimer: **I am too tired to even pretend I own the vast and wealth-filled empire of Harry Potter. It's not mine. And I'm not even trying to act like it is. Oh, and P.S.: I'm not PJ Harvey either. Shocking! And P.P.S.: the song that Remus and Lily listen to in this chapter is most definitely not mine and instead is David Bowie's. Sweetness. And the movie quoted at the end? _A bout de souflee_, aka _Breathless,_ for the non-francophone.

**Rated: **R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **I've done a little better with the updating, no? Not phenomenal, but I'm trying. Firstly, I just want to thank everyone for the amazing support when it comes to this story. I am really glad that you guys are getting so much enjoyment out of this silly story of mine. I am truly grateful. I guess the story is finally winding down, chapter 8 of 12, and it's become quite a mess. I'm trying to unwind, and let's just say, I hope it turns out well. I will try to get the rest of the story out sometime before the next decade, but spring semester has just begun, so who knows. Anyway, please read and enjoy, and any or all thoughts are greatly appreciated. Thank you!

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

**8. Like Lovers**

We lean against railings  
Describing the colors  
And the smells of our homelands  
Acting like lovers

How did we get here  
To this point of living  
I held my breath  
You said something

And I'm doing nothing wrong…

- _"You Said Something" PJ Harvey_

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She is treading water.

Her legs move, slow and methodical, sticky, as though trying to pull themselves up and out of molasses but finding the motion a bit too difficult to master.

She isn't going anywhere. She is just bobbing, perpendicular, up and down and up and down, water lapping at her lips and sloshing in her ears.

She went to a meeting last night. She went to meeting with James and listened as they described the mounting odds against their cause and felt the weight of James' hand upon her bare leg. She wore her favorite green sundress. She has no idea why.

Oh, Alice. What rabbit hole have we fallen into this time?

Over her head, she might be over her head, and now she is treading water in a chlorinated swimming pool with a lifeguard standing watch.

Taking a deep breath before going under, she asks herself, or maybe the world, why the trees happen to look so green today.

She wonders, as she slips under and opens her eyes, staring into the burning blue waters. She wonders what she exactly has gotten herself into. She wonders as she bursts up over the surface, gasping a little and catching sight of the little girls playing mermaids down at the other end of the pool.

If only they knew they were actually real and not half as attractive as they have been led to believe.

She floats from one side of the pool to the other. She catches sight of a group of girls, girls she would guess her own age. She catches sight of them, tan and oiled up, bikinis and sunglasses and a tinny radio blasting the summer hits. And she thinks, that should be me. That should be me, sitting on the edge of it all, sitting on the edge and smiling in the sun.

Too bad she's already halfway under.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

"Lily, are you mad at me?" She hates the simplicity of the question and the complexity that comes of answering it without offending and somehow being honest.

James took her out to dinner. She can't even remember the last time they did something like this. So simple romantic and candlelight and the guarantee of good food and the hope for equally satisfying conversation.

Instead he throws this at her. Hits her with the ultimate curveball. Are you mad at me?

And of course she has to speak without answering. She blames her hair, the color, the red. She can act hot-tempered with a mane this fiery. It's assumed they go hand in hand, lock in lock.

"I…can't even begin to think of how I could answer that." She watches him put down his fork, glinting among the half-eaten salad and cock his head a little to the right. She can see the candlelight reflecting off his glasses and knows she has said the wrong thing.

"Is that a yes or is that a no?" She loves how James can do this. She loves it and she hates it. He can take any situate and whittle it down until it is nothing more than a yes or a no, a good or a bad, a right or a wrong.

Maybe that's why she is here with him in the first place. For simplicity's sake.

"It's a…I don't know, James. I guess, no, no, I'm not mad at you."

He studies her. And she doesn't like that she can't see his eyes. Dancing flames mar his eyes, the candles reflecting, reflecting, reflecting in his eyes, keeping them from her green erratic gaze.

"But…?" He's leading the witness. He is leading the witness and he is not allowed to do that. Or is she the defendant? The plaintiff? The judge herself, haughty at the top of the court, gavel in hand, the ability to strike down and end this with the pounding of her wrist?

"But what James?" She is getting angry, and they are in public and she isn't allowed to raise her voice and either are they and they are easily the only people in here under fifty-five and they've all already given them the curious eye the second they walked through the door and yelling will only turn the curious to annoyed.

She takes a deep breath.

"We haven't really been right, have we? I mean, since that fight we had the other week."

He is leaning in and all she can think about is personal space and how hers is seconds away from being violated.

She loves him though. She does. And she is in public. And must act a lady.

She leans in slightly, her voice a whisper, nearly conspiratorial. "We haven't been right for a while, James."

He swallows and she watches the Adam's apple bob up and down and up and down. And then he leans back, slouched in his chair. She would call him comfortable, but the frown upon his face distorts the image.

"You're not happy, are you, Lily?"

Her hand stills halfway to her lips, a goblet of ice water clutched at the stem. The condensation drips down the glass and along her wrist.

She takes a sip.

"No, I'm not. But that's hardly your fault, James." She takes another sip and sets her glass down.

And there is silence, silence without movement.

And he finally speaks.

"Check, please."

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

"It's a god-awful small affair to the girl with the mousy hair…" 

She imagines this is how _Wuthering Heights _is supposed to look.

Despite the summer heat, the sky is a strange gray, a gray that makes the fog rising from the steaming sidewalk seem a mere extension from the heavens above.

She wants to wander the moors. Merely for the extra excuse to brood and be silent. She thinks there might be something wrong with that.

She sits there, alone with Remus, record droning in the background. They have left them, Sirius and James. They have gone, on some mission for the Order. And Remus is left behind, left behind with her.

She doesn't ask him why.

They sit on the floor of her room, her parents none-the-wiser that there is a boy holed up in her room with her. They sit there, and she flips the needle down onto the record and music begins to fill the room.

She imagines if she were to tell James that Remus spent the night with her, he would just nod his head, none the wiser. Trust that blind is borderline irresponsible. But she bets a thought like that is just the reason why she carries a nametag around with the word "cynical" stamped in red ink.

"Who's this?" Remus asks her, leaning back against the wall, lackadaisically gesturing towards the record player. She wishes there was a cigarette hanging from his lips. It would complete her vision of ideal masculinity. He has the grey shirt on, the long, lanky limbs coursing with muscle beneath. He has the worn, torn jeans that hang upon his hips. He has the hair needing to be cut, the stubble needing to be shaved. He needs the cigarette to complete the ensemble.

"Bowie," she whispers in reply. "David Bowie."

"Hhmph." She's not really sure what that sounds means, but takes it as one of acquiesce.

They sit there, awkward, and she wonders why he took it upon himself to watch over her tonight. It's some perverse twist on baby-sitting, or rather, the boy next door, scaling an ageless tree, sneaking over and through the window, parents just a floor below, nightly news droning out the evening noise.

He sits there, slouched, eyes watching the hardwood floors, and there she is. Back straight, charm school style, hands clasped nervously in her lap.

"Does it always have to be so hard?" And she doesn't know what it is she is asking, but the question leaves her mouth unbidden, hanging there in the air, dead on arrival, ambiguity and uncertainty curling the edges.

He doesn't answer. She didn't really expect him to.

"_But the film is a saddening bore 'cause I wrote it ten times or more…."_

Instead, he kisses her. She would call it chaste if there was still some semblance of innocence left in her world. Or his. He's a savage and she's nothing more than a little girl lost. He'll huff and he'll puff and he'll blow her house down.

She just hopes she's not inside when the roof finally caves in.

She lets him kiss her, playing the passive role, leaning back into the wall, her neck at an awkward angle.

This could be romantic. This could be romantic if her hands would stop shaking and she could lose the sick feeling pooling at the bottom of her gut.

And they continue, picking up speed, his fingers caught in her hair at the base of her neck. And she would say that she whimpered, but the word seems too weak, too juvenile, too kittenish for her. For them.

He pulls her t-shirt over her head, and she arches into him, clad in a white lace bra and cut-off blue jean shorts.

"You're beautiful," he whispers, and she wants to slap him for killing the mood. He bites and nips her shoulder and she wants him to make it hurt, make the sentimental and the maudlin bleed away from them.

"Don't talk like that," she grits out through clenched teeth. And she expects him to slow, to still. To hold her by the shoulders and ask her what the fuck is wrong with her, that she is beautiful and he loves her.

She digs her fingers into his shoulders, nails biting through his shirt, at the very thought of the word. Love. No love. No love. Not love.

He surprises her. He surprises her like always. His fingers dig into her sides and she gasps at the sharp sting. And he bites her harder, and she wonders how she will explain this to James.

She draws his shirt off of him, letting him set back upon his heels.

And she stares.

They have never fucked in the light. She finds it vaguely disorienting.

She draws a finger across his chest, across the scar. Connection from collarbone to sternum. Her fingers walk the path, fingertips barely meeting skin.

"Does it hurt?" Her voice barely above a whisper, dropped low in reverence, almost there in prayer.

He knows she isn't referring to the scar, this particular brand of his disease. Of his reality.

His eyes meet hers, bringing her in. "Like hell."

His lips crash to hers and her mind is slipping off towards blank.

This is what they mean by going nowhere fast. She is on a collision course with nothing, speeding past the same old, same old, landmarks aging before her very eyes. Yes, this is going nowhere. But she can't seem to find the brake.

"_Is there life on Mars?"_

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

They sit there, in the darkened movie theater, patrons rushing past, spilling popcorn here and there.

She remembers the first time she brought James here. He had looked the way she had that first day when she was eleven and walking through the entrance of Hogwarts for the very first time. That childlike awe and suspect that none of this can be real. And if for a second, either of them were to close their eyes, the entire scene would drop away and they would wake up alone and fitful in their respective beds.

They sit there in a strange silence. Everything and nothing has been right since that last dinner.

This is their first date since then.

Nothing is right.

She sits there, playing with a straw, pulling it up and out of the cup, and just as quickly, dropping it back in.

"This movie is in French?"

"Yes," she whispers back. And the conversation dies just as quickly as it was sparked.

The lights go down, dimming the theater in black and white as the projector casts the movie upon the screen.

And she lets herself get lost in the foreign tongue. She lets the French slide right over her. Unfamiliar sounds with an explanation below them on the screen.

And she watches her heroine, the woman who rules the screen and an entire theater's worth of people for two hours. She watches her and reads her lines in white beneath her monochromatic face.

_"I don't know if I'm unhappy because I'm not free, or if I'm not free because I'm unhappy."_

And she doesn't know why, but has she ever? She doesn't know why, but she can feel it. The tears pricking at the corners of her eyes and she wonders for the briefest of seconds whether or not here, in the middle of a decrepit old movie theater, is where she will lost it all, spilling the marbles into the aisle, sliding down her seat and just breaking down, down, down.

She imagines there is a point a person can reach where they are just so broken, so completely trashed and ruined, there is no possible remedy, no possible cure and the only answer is utter and complete change.

It might just be the single most terrifying prescription that could be offered.

But she lets the unintelligible syllables slip in and out of her ear. She lets the words bleed off the screen and even deeper into her mind, tangling and tangoing with thoughts she can't unscramble.

And she watches him upon the screen, a cigarette hanging between his lips.

_"When we talked, I talked about me, you talked about you, when we should have talked about each other."_

She clutches the armrest, fearful of sliding off her seat and into this strange world of black and white and words that make no sense.

Near tears, she turns and she whispers. "I hate that I don't even know you anymore." And her chest shakes and her voice trembles, and she sucks in a deep breath, trying not to sniffle, trying not to let on that here, at nine o'clock on a Thursday night while watching a film in French, she is crying.

And he holds her hand. And for that minute, it's enough.

And they leave before the credits roll, as a man runs from the police and as the guns pop off. They already know the ending.

"You alright?" he asks as they open the door, pushing out into the muggy summer evening.

"We should have seen _Some Like it Hot _instead."

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She guesses that's why they call it terrorism. And maybe why they call it war. There is nothing diplomatic about it. Just breaking and dying and failing and falling.

They had crossed the street. The light had turned red and the traffic had slowed, and James was busy gawking, craning his neck, whiplash from a Cadillac.

And there it was.

She's not sure if she saw it before she heard it. She just knows she stood there, the opposite side of the street from the Princess Marquee Cinema, and saw, in the dark reflection of a closed drugstore window and giant flash of green.

Then there came the screaming.

She wonders why time seems to slow down when life speeds up. Why it seemed to take more than two hours just to turn her head, for James's fingers to close about her arm.

She watched the rubble hit the street, giant craters created in their wake, cars catching fire, people scrambling, ants in an ant farm and some dumb fucking excuse for a kid has decided to flip it on its head.

And she can see them. Dressed in black. Of course, the bad guys always dress in black, and they always pop up at the worst time and they always kill, kill, kill and ruin and destroy.

And she imagines that somewhere above, somewhere above this messy mosaic of life and death, clear white lines of English are being spelt out across the sky, interpreting the chaos below into a language they might someday be able to understand.

James grabs her hand, shouting at her over his shoulder. And they run, and she thought they were supposed to be heroes, just like David Bowie said. She thought they were supposed to be the heroes here, but instead they run among the rubble, coward, coward, coward beating a song into the ground.

They round the corner, Lily almost losing her footing on broken concrete. Then realizes it is a hand she just leaped over and can feel the bile rise.

She doesn't understand why everyone associates red with evil and with death. Racing across over their heads in pandemonium, all she can see is green. She feels sick, watching people fall, watching people flee a falling theater, breaking buildings, buckling earth, some trying to stop the flames, other falling to the ground in defeat. Green, green, green. Bright green light inflaming the sky, wild words let into the night, the dead slipping, slipping, a frightening green pallor on their faces.

"_Reminds me of the one about the condemned man. Climbing the scaffold stairs, he trips, and says, 'In the future…'"_

With a snap and a crack, she lands on her knees in her front yard, face first in the wet green grass.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**


	9. 9: Another War Zone

**A 12 Step Program**

**Disclaimer:** I had a dream last night. And I was way rich and way regarded as an eminent writer. I was sweet, let's put it that way. But I woke up. And discovered I am still a broke college student with far too big of an imagination and if I get slapped with a lawsuit, I imagine I would be even broker. I don't own Harry Potter or this magically cool world. And I am not PJ Harvey. That said; leave me legally alone, please. Thanks.

**Rated:** R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary:** 12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note:** I'm back. With a vengeance, so to speak. I've been working on this chapter for a while, throwing it against the wall, questioning whether or not to go through with what I intended, and well, I did. I'm rambling now, and most of this will make little to no sense until you read this. This chapter is intense and truly merits its mature rating. I am not trying to make any kind of political statement; I am not forcing any of my views upon anyone. This is a part of Lily's character evolution, and it isn't pretty. You have been warned. I'll say that again, you have been warned. That said, this story is getting ready for the wind-down. Three chapters left, with the last two already practically written. And next week starts my summer, so I really hope to finish this sometime soon. Thank you for reading and for all the lovely words of support. I hope you enjoy this chapter.

- - -

-

- - -

**9. Another War Zone**

Ten thousand willing  
Pilots flying  
Interfacing  
Space and beyond  
Built an army  
To come and find me

Beyond all reason  
Beyond all my hopes  
The call of duty  
Another war zone  
Make me moan, moan

Kamikaze - you can't touch me, kamikaze

_- "Kamikaze" PJ Harvey_

- - -

-

- - -

Lily has never liked the smell of freshly cut grass. And on her knees, one scraped and tingling with pain, her head is full of the rich scent.

She pushes herself up and on her knees, wincing slightly, grass clippings all over her pale green sundress. She runs shaking hands down her front, the blades of grass sticking to her sweaty palms, some finding their way back onto the shorn ground. She has grass stains on her elbows, and idly rubs the skin raw as she glances over towards James.

His glasses are broken, one half hanging limply off his face. She watches him grumble, pull them from his face, whisper an incantation and suddenly they are whole again.

It's so easy.

Tousled hair and dirty cheeks, she reaches over, grabs his arm, squeezes, leaning over to lop her arm around his shoulders. Deep breath. Deep breaths.

"Are you alright?" he asks, looking down at her, clean glasses, filthy face, and she really feels anything but alright. She feels scared and tired and frighteningly vulnerable.

He doesn't need to know that.

She nods, her throat strangely raw. "Yeah…You?"

"Yeah." He kisses her once, the forehead, a chaste peck, and pushes her arm off him and stands.

He offers her a hand, distracted, gentlemanly, and she rises to her feet, shaky kneeded, off-kilter.

"Go to bed." He says it gently, but the command is still present. The ill-framed sentence, lacking a subject and proper, polite verb conjugation. She'd prefer a question mark at the end instead of the claustrophobic closing of a period. She wants to laugh. Thinking of grammar after cheating death, crafting sexist scenarios in her head to distract her from something deeper.

"Where are you going?" And she wonders what they look like here, if any of her sleeping neighbors were to witness this. Crumpled clothes and dirty knees, wild-haired and wild-eyed, the streetlamp next to her driveway dead and sightless, and they stand there opposite each other on her front lawn.

"I'm going to go back." She visibly shakes her head a little, not in negation, but more an attempt to knock the idea around a bit. She doesn't understand where 'back' is at first, imagining it to be home, but realizing then what he really means.

She understands now why he was a Gryffindor; why he is one. This blind courage, senseless drive to save the world even if it means you have nothing left to come back to after everything else has been righted and you yourself have been wronged. The Gryffindors were always the brave, but she believes deep down, they were also always the foolish. Bravery and foolishness: a dangerous concoction creating something akin to a death wish.

"You're going back? What –" He raises a hand and she thinks Gestapo and for the life of her she will probably never be able to explain the connect-the-dots imagery. She falls silent all the same, not really sure what insensitive and potentially offensive question she was about to lob his way.

"Lily." He says her name the same way a person spells exasperation. She doesn't care for it much. "Lily, I just wanted to…wanted to make sure you got back here. And you did. I can't just – not do anything."

She remembers why she finds it so easy to hate James Potter. In his attempt to shield her from the horrors of the world he turns her into something sad and obsolete, something she refuses to become.

"And I can? What happened to 'us doing this together' and, and…I am a part of this too!"

They are yelling and if there was a clock nearby it would be chiming a quarter to midnight, a quarter too late, and she should never have gone out tonight and instead just stayed in her bed sleeping, sleeping, sleeping soundly and clear and far away from breaking buildings and arguments that are fast becoming the equivalent to airing dirty laundry in public.

"Stay, Lily. I'll be back by morning.

This is just something I need to do."

She watches him apparate, slightly dulled shock, and she feels like his pet. Stay Lily. Sit Lily. Fetch me a beer and check on the kids, Lily.

Roll over and play dead, Lily. And maybe while you're down there, stop breathing for a bit. You might like it.

- - -

-

- - -

Morning comes in a strangely unfamiliar way. She doesn't remember falling asleep, and waking seems just as involuntarily natural as well.

She just lies there, curled in on her side, fetal position, blanket all the way up to her chin, tickling slightly. The first rays of sun cross in through her window illuminating the pink rug on the floor.

She finds it ironic, that this, after all the time spent in the dark, this, the sun, is what she awakens to. And after a night like last night especially.

She doesn't move. She lets her eyes drift shut again, not expecting sleep. And she thinks of nothing real and instead, all manner of things purely imagined.

She hasn't done this since she was a little girl, dreaming up ruby slippers and empty castles. It might have been last year.

She drifts off, in a realm resembling sleep, the clock keeping track of the hours lost beneath the sheets.

- - -

-

- - -

She wakes up two hours later with the distinct feeling that the entire world is about to end.

The bird outside her window, white-breasted, perched upon a tree branch, unmoving in the thick morning air chirps and nods in solemn agreement. In a rustle of feathers it flies away into the blinding glare of the sun.

She imagines James is dead. Or, at the very least, close to dying. But then she thinks, well, aren't we all? We never get younger, we only move closer and the seconds are subtracted and can't ever be added, and, yes, he is dying, and, yes, they are all dying and there is no such thing as immortality.

It still leaves a sick feeling deep within her stomach. It reminds her of when she was eight, when she was eight and learned about the solar system and the sun and how one day, someday, the sun would get too bright and the fire far too hot and that would be it. The sun would engulf the earth and everything would burn. He said they had a handful of billions of years left. They'd be long gone anyway.

She still hadn't liked it.

Lily likes to think she'll live forever. But this morning seems to sing a different song.

- - -

-

- - -

Turns out, James is still alive. Turns out, there was nothing there to worry about. A few scratches and a mending arm, but he's just fine and all stunned smiles, with shiny words like 'hero' attached to his lapel.

It's all very storybook pretty and press release fancy.

Seventeen people died that night. All of them Muggles and the thought of it makes her stomach turn a little as she remembers that first blast of green light and the way the sidewalk felt as though it was slipping down into a hell you never dare to dream of.

Sirius had been there too, telling ever exaggerated tales to his equivalent of groupies that hang off his strong shoulders and his every word. Even Peter gets some action out of the heroics and the his own daring show of strength.

Remus is quiet, par usual, and if she didn't know him better, she wouldn't notice the coiled energy, the slowly stewing heat, the building of emotion she doesn't know how to name.

She chooses to ignore. Things are just easier that way.

- - -

-

- - -

One night she had a dream. She had a dream she walked through the great doors of her childhood church and it was empty. The church was empty and she walked down the aisle between the wooden pews, dressed in white, the hem too long, and she was barefoot. And she walked. She walked to the altar and stood there before the great stained glass window, Jesus crucified before her. And then she noticed the window to the left, slightly smaller, glowing, glowing, glowing, the candles in front of it gleaming and sparkling and lighting off the colored windows.

It was Lily. It was Lily in the window, all red hair and white robes, clutching a child in her arms, a halo above her head.

She had gasped, she had gasped and went to run. But when she turned around, she realized she was not alone.

There was an entire congregation, a candlelight vigil. There were the nuns, the priest. Her entire town. And they were all on their knees before her.

The next day, she realizes she is probably pregnant. And refuses to leave her bed.

- - -

-

- - -

She is a lot calmer about all of this than she ever thought she could be.

That doesn't mean she has gone farther than her bedroom. That doesn't mean she has left her bed.

Under the covers, stuffy and warm, her breath a tightly controlled cycle of inhale and exhale, she feels as though the entire world is something else, something distant, unrelated, and far, far away.

She knows she can't keep it.

She did her homework back at Hogwarts. A human giving birth to a child fathered by a werewolf is dangerous for all parties involved. And she, Lily, cannot raise a child, let alone an infant werewolf. But then she realizes that doesn't even really matter. It's a moot point in the grand scheme of things.

She can remember the fine print, the scrolling letters, the alphabet that spelt out a D, an E, an A, T, H for the mother involved. And rather than be raised by wolves, she - but who is she kidding? It would fall to her parents, maybe to him, an orphanage - will be raising one all her own.

Last year, Lily, 16, sixth-year, and Head Girl Madeline Lewis had gotten herself knocked up. Pretty little Gryffindor with a ski-jump nose and suck me lips, who spent her patrol hours romantically occupied in the Astronomy Tower.

Lily remembers the drama, the surrounding gossip, the whispering in the bathrooms and the shushed glances. She remembers hearing about Madeline's friends and how they snuck out on a Hogsmeade visit to Knockturn Alley. She remembers Gwendolyn whispering about the potion they brought back at night, a stage whisper, more thrilled than appalled. It all had been very melodramatic and Madeline left school on time with a new boyfriend and apparently a new shot at life as she knew it.

Lily throws the covers off her and silently curses girls like Madeline Lewis, girls like herself.

- - -

-

- - -

The first pregnancy test tells her she is pregnant. Congratulations. Get the cigars ready and watch your father cry.

The second spells out that she is going to hell and the Devil himself looks forward to her presence.

The third announces loud and clear that she, Lily, is royally fucked and probably should not have wasted what money she does have at the drug store on two unnecessary pregnancy tests.

"Oh, bugger," she whispers and finally turns the shower on.

- - -

-

- - -

She's not the kind of girl that frequents Knockturn Alley. But now, as she turns a corner, she thinks she'll need to revise that statement, put it in the past tense and try not to think about it.

A tiny bell rings above the door as she steps over the threshold, and the simple chime seems out of place here, too friendly for a place so foreboding.

She breathes a sigh of relief as she notices the store is abandoned, save for the woman behind the counter, all frizzled hair, weathered face and emaciated frame. A cigarette hangs from her fingers spilling ash on the aged wood countertop. Desolate. Lily thinks the word desolate and wonders if twenty years down the pike she'll looked just as eroded and broken down.

She approaches the counter, hesitant, and hates herself for it.

The woman's face quirks a little and she wonders if that's her attempt at a smile.

"Could I…" Lily clears her throat and starts anew. "Could I please have a bottle of Jezebel's Reversal Remedy?" An internal battle wages within her, a strong fight to keep from crying, blushing, running out of the store and throwing herself off of whatever ledge or stairwell she happens to come across.

"Have you used this before?" A dead croak of a voice, and Jesus, what the fuck is Lily even doing here? That's right, getting rid of a baby that would ultimately kill her nine months from now and destroying the evidence that would demonstrate to the jury that, yes, she has been fucking Remus Lupin all goddamn summer.

"I…uh…" She considers lying. Saying it is for a friend, her sister, a random girl in the street who is too embarrassed to enter the store. For whatever reason, she just doesn't have the strength. "No, no I haven't."

"Take it all. It tastes like pure rubbish, but you have to drink it all. Disastrous for baby and mum if you don't."

"Thank you." And she hands her the money and takes the brown bag.

- - -

-

- - -

She sits in the bathroom. She has the bottle there on the counter.

She uncorks the top and smells it. Death. It smells like death. If death had a scent, other than sickness, old age, and detritus in general, it would be this.

Lily imagines that if this were a movie and she was its fragile heroine, if this were little more than a melodramatic affair, like Madeline Lewis, all perfect lighting and staged movements and reactions, she would take that bottle, hold it in her hand , transfixed, and slowly raise her head, stare at everything including the reflection before her and wonder how life managed to slip and slide away to this, to something as strange as this. If Lily was a heroine she would throw that bottle and watch it smash upon the door, and sob, and sob and scream and beg and plead with the lord on high, asking why, why, why her.

If Lily was brave, she might take a sip, decide the taste is worth the trouble nine months and eighteen years could bring her and swallow hard and pretend it's nothing more than whiskey, nothing more than vodka, nothing more than a numbing anesthetic that led her here in the first place.

She imagines. Lily imagines a lot of things, and as she sits there, alone, in her pink bathroom with Jezebel's euphemistically labeled "Reversal Remedy" she knows, she fucking knows, no amount of imagination or flight of fantasy is going to pull her out of this one.

This wasn't supposed to happen. But the reality of the situation is that it did.

Instead, she calmly rises, uncorks the bottle. She stares into the mirror. And is disappointed. She had thought she would look…different. Her life has torn away at the seams yet she looks no different.

Maybe it's for the best.

With a flick of the wrist, she dumps the potion down the drain.

The next day, she returns, back to the store, back to Knockturn Alley, requests a bottle of the same and ignores the clerk's knowing eyes.

She finds herself back in the bathroom, back with the same bottle in her hand. She ignores the fact she is white-knuckled, shaky.

She stares at herself for a minute.

"This is something I have to do," she whispers.

She downs the entire bottle in one gulp, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand.

It tastes, it tastes like nothing.

It doesn't hurt. It just feels numb. And cold.

"This is something I have to do," she whispers once again. And knows she has to end this.

- - -

-

- - -

She spent five days in her bedroom. Told her mother she had the flu. Told James she was under the weather. Told herself she was going to die for this one.

A week later, still slightly drained, she makes her way to Remus's. Knocks on his sage green door and waits for him to invite her in.

He does, his house characteristically empty, and leads her to the kitchen, asks if she wants something to drink, an iced tea, a lemonade, some of his mother's bourbon.

She shakes her head, a mute decline.

Harnessing what little strength she seems to possess, she opens her mouth to speak.

"It's over." And she hopes she doesn't look as dejected as she feels, as broken and hollow and altogether tired. She hopes she comes across as strong, as defiant, as a woman of the world with no attachments to hold her down, hold her steady.

She hopes she looks like she doesn't need him. Because she doesn't. No. She doesn't.

"Alright then," and it's all he says and she's ashamed because she's hungry for more, and hasn't that always been her problem? An insatiable appetite for the unknown. Her eyes bigger than her stomach, her heart louder than her mind.

"That's it?" A nervous clench in her gut reprimands her for saying it.

"What do you want me to say?" He stares at her blankly and she would fucking coach him through his lines if that meant everything would be a little easier, a bit more soluble. But she knows it's not. It doesn't work that way.

"I don't…I don't know."

"You want me to beg?" He asks the question so formally, so impersonally it freezes her in place, her train of thought temporarily thrown off its tracks.

And the sad truth is, she kind of does. Want him to beg, want herself to be something worth fighting for. And maybe it is selfish, no, it's definitely selfish, but here they all stand, comrades in arms, and everyone is fighting for something, fighting for peace, for justice, for freedom and for fear, and she just wants to know why not one among them is willing to fight for love.

As soon as she thinks it, she knows this has to stop. It's gone far enough already.

"No. I don't want you to beg," she whispers. "It's over," she states again, proud that her voice stays steady. He just nods.

"It's been fun," and he says it so dryly, so sarcastically, it greets her like a smack in the face, his little fuck buddy, and she wonders if he really is this callous once you get deep enough under his skin.

This really isn't how she imagined this turning out.

She squares her jaw, teeth grinding, a little, and she is ready to rip into him.

He cuts her off before she can even start. "Don't bother. I knew sooner or later this would happen. I've been at _your_ disposal from the beginning." No, no, this is the slap in the face. This is the sting and the pain and everything she really never wanted to hear but already knew.

"Fuck you."

"Funny," and she wishes he would just talk normal, talk like a human, hurt and bleed like the rest of them and stop being so goddamn stoic. "That's how we got here in the first place."

She hates him. She hates him and his calm demeanor and the fact that nothing, anything, ever seems to rattle him.

"I hate you," she seethes and it's not as satisfying as she thought it would be and it is really rather embarrassing how transparent she is when it comes to her emotions.

He studies her face for a moment, his own characteristically unreadable. He stalks forward, one step, two steps, all coiled energy once again, clenched fists and blank expression. And he is there in her face, and God, she hates him so much.

"Of course you do." The words escape him, steam from a vent, a low growl in his throat. She fucking hates him.

She opens her mouth, no plan for the words to come, and stops short and his lips capture her own. He kisses her, hard, teeth holding onto her bottom lip. Her fingers clawing angry at his chest, his own harsh up on her jaw, and she dimly notes that they are in the Lupin family kitchen at three o'clock on a cloudy summer afternoon.

Up against a wall, and this is really just perverse. Her legs wrapped around him, her panties hanging off her foot, and she swallows a sob as she thinks of everything, everything just falling down. She can hear James in her head, and, yes, love, we are at war, but it's not with who you thought and your allies might just be your enemies but never the other way around. She closes her eyes and pictures stained glass windows and dirty empty alleys and wonders when she will ever learn, because here she is, again, fucking the same man who inadvertently fucked her over, fucking him without an ounce of protection, but isn't that how things have always been between them – physically and emotionally? She guesses she will never learn – it's impossible to teach an old dog new tricks, and the same holds true with stubborn bitches. She wants to cry, but instead she moans, the sound broken and hollow, broken and hollow.

She wonders what Remus would say if she told him he almost had a son. Wonders what he would say if she told him she loved him. What he would say if she told him she knows she won't be alive long enough to see her twenty-first birthday.

She comes, eyes seeing nothing but a vibrant flash of green and this really isn't how she pictured this. This was never supposed to happen.

This wasn't supposed to happen. And with a loud whir, a lawnmower starts up outside, breaking the silence of bated breath and the ticking of the grandfather clock in the foyer, marking time, marking time.

The smell of freshly cut green grass washes through the open window and settles in the quiet kitchen.

- - -

-

- - -


	10. 10: The Axis Turns

**A 12 Step Program**

**Disclaimer:** We're 10 chapters into this mess of a story, kids. If you are still under the delusion that this silly college student is JK Rowling, or better yet, PJ Harvey, and for the sake of this chapter and its contents we'll throw Joni Mitchell into the fray, I'm not. Mkay?

**Rated: **R (adult themes, sexuality, and language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **Chapter 10! I really can't believe how close to the end this story has come. Makes me a little sad. This chapter…writing it has been like pulling teeth. Hard to explain, and even more difficult to write. I guess this is all the falling action, if we're going to speak in the whole five-stages-of-a-plot idea. But I'm strangely anxious to complete this story and I'm not entirely sure why. I guess there really isn't much needed in way of an explanation regarding this particular chapter. So, on that note, please, do, read on and thank you for sticking with me and this story.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

**10. The Axis Turns**

I can't believe that the axis turns on suffering  
When you taste so good  
Ican't believe that the axis turns on suffering  
While my head burns…

Come on out, come on over, help me forget  
Keep the walls from falling as they're tumbling in

This is love, this is love  
That I'm feeling…

- _"This is Love" PJ Harvey_

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

Lily is having a total Joni Mitchell moment. But, then, when she takes a second to think about it, she has been having a total Joni Mitchell kind of summer: shades of blue drifting across the suburbs of London and the magical boroughs near Diagon Alley and Godric's Hollow. It's been the kind of summer where poetic language and nearly clichéd thought merge together with the heavy, heady surroundings creating a lyrical melody all its own. And as a sort of domino effect of trouble cascades its way down on her, Lily knows, now more than ever, the closing of July and the entr'acte of August, she really needs that river to skate away on.

Oh, yeah, Joni. Sooner rather than later Lily's own off-key voice will join in with yours, warbling a tearful "I made my baby cry," and throwing in a broken "I'm so hard to handle, I'm selfish and I'm sad, now I've gone and lost the best baby that I ever had" for good measure at the end. Joni, you're not alone. Or maybe you are. It seems that heartbreak and pain and misery always carry the placard denoting party of one, and the old saying, about misery and company, is really just a collection of empty sounds lacking true significance or meaning.

Lily wonders if James is the best she ever had. Or something akin to the worst. Or maybe that's how it works. The best is the worst, and the worst, the best, triggering the extreme ends of the spectrum, love and hate and hate and love, and she has a feeling she quit making sense a long way back, sometime in May when she dropped her sanity with her schoolbooks and her panties soon there after.

She wants to know why when she closes her eyes she pictures Remus rather than James. She wants to know why she craves the company of the former rather than the latter, why it's always the ones you can't have that get you hotter than safety can ever seem to spark. It must be the whole dancing too close to the flame idea, dallying with the devil and praying to a god you rejected that you don't get burned.

"I love him," she whispers. And she hopes and prays that it's not the truth.

She takes the screaming kettle off the stove as her mother walks into the kitchen, unannounced, quietly appraising her youngest daughter.

"Lily, I've been meaning to talk to you," she begins.

"We talk everyday, Mother," Lily swiftly interrupts.She doesn't completely understand why she resents this woman, her own mother, so much. But she does. And something tells her, in the narrowed eyes and the absence of mother-daughter bonding in her past, that the feeling is somewhat mutual.

A hand on her hip, near the high waistband of her voluminous skirt, and Lily wonders if this woman ever craved this kind of existence, if the banality and boredom of it all is ever enough to make her snap, pack her bags, and run, leaving Mr. Evans in a house alone with his full-grown daughter and the ghosts of domestic disturbance disguised as tranquility.

"That's not what I meant, Lily. We need to talk about your future, what you plan on doing after this summer," and it's the voice, that voice she has heard for the last eighteen years: Lily, this is not what I meant by clean your room. And what will the neighbors think, Lily? I am your mother and I know what's best. I am your mother and I am your future, Lily.

"Later." And Lily closes the argument as she takes her mug of tea out on the front porch, the muggy evening heat her only company.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

Lily sits in her sunny kitchen and stirs her cereal with a spoon, turning the corn flakes and milk into an unappetizing paste she has no intention of consuming. She takes a sip of coffee, cringing as it scalds her tongue.

The kitchen seems too bright, the morning too sunny. Near blinding, Lily thinks.

She hears a sharp flick, and looks up to see her mother sitting across from her, clad in a bright floral blouse, puffed sleeves, smoking a cigarette.

"All right, out with it. You've been sulky for weeks now, Lils, and I've about had enough. You're a woman now. Grow up." Mrs. Evans has never been a confrontational woman, and to say that Lily is shocked would be an underestimation at best.

A strange smile quirks Lily's face, her eyebrows drawn together, confused, yet strangely amused. "You don't smoke, Mum."

"And you don't get to change the subject." A strong exhale, smoke exiting through her nostrils, and all Lily can think of is dragons and fire as her mother leans forward across the table, the rich scent of cloves and tobacco is on the air, nauseating her.

The impossibility of the situation, the utter out of character behavior her mother has adopted, are beginning to irritate her. She doesn't like this. No, she doesn't like this at all.

"Maybe you should just save it and lecture Petunia," she states acidly. "You two always seemed to get on a bit better with the whole mother-daughter thing."

She shakes her head, dropping ash on the tabletop, ignoring it. It doesn't make any sense. "Apples and trees, love. I look at you and I see me. But you learn in the end. You learn. And it's really not so bad."

The kitchen lights are too fluorescent, yellow light,and Lily feels strangely cold.

"I don't understand."

"No. Not now. But you can't have the best of both worlds. That's the point here. You can't be Muggle and magic. You can't be child and mother. And you can't have one and love the other."

She stares blankly, and she can swear her mother looks twenty years younger.

"There are more important things to consider, Lily."

"Like what?"

Her mother stubs the cigarette out on the tabletop, burning the tablecloth and leaving a deep burn mark on the wooden table below, a nearly manic grin on her face.

"Saving the world, of course."

A flash of green and her kitchen is little more than a leveled battlefield, stretches of dead earth with screaming and falling and more green, green, green. A flash and a cemetery, a flash and two graves, a full moon, a jail sentence, the dementors of Azkaban, blood and gore, and a quiet nursery. A flash and her own green eyes, wide and empty. Dead.

She wakes up with a gasp, and instead of seeing bursting stars before her eyes, she sees nothing more than the faint outline of lightning bolts dancing before her in the dark.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

She didn't sleep much the rest of the night. Tossed and turned,alternating between beingtoo hot and then too cold.

She finally gave up at seven in the morning and tramped downstairs in her pajamas, and half an hour later, she finds herself sitting alone in the family room, watching cartoons and eating a bowl of cereal.

She hears the stairs creaking under descending footsteps. When she looks up, ignoring the supposedly comic hijinks on the screen, she sees her mother in the wide doorway.

"You'd think you were eight rather than eighteen," her mother states as a greeting.

"Good morning to you, too." Looking at her mother, tired, hair rumpled, she can't get the dream from last night out of her head.

Rather than acknowledging her statement, her mother simply says, "You're up early."

"Yes. I am."

"Sleep well?"

"Not particularly."

Her mother has a sad smile on her face and Lily doesn't like it. Slowly, she walks towards her, Lily sitting cross-legged on the couch, and runs a hand through her red hair.

"You've grown up so fast."

With a kiss on her forehead, her mother leaves, and Lily can hear her, bustling around, preparing breakfast for her father and she wonders if what her mother said is true.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**

By early afternoon, restlessness is just a euphemism for her frame of mind. It's been such a Joni Mitchell kind of summer and she has never felt as selfish or sad as she does sitting in her room.

Without thinking, she grabs her wand and apparates.

When she opens her eyes, she finds herself in Remus Lupin's front lawn and she's really not surprised.

He rises from his vantage point upon the porch, their eyes lock, and she knows. She knows it must be love. Only love could create such a beautiful disaster, such an awful tension, the branding and the burning.

He descends the step, skipping over the broken one, second from the bottom. He doesn't say hello and she doesn't either, and she guesses at some point they rounded a corner where these greetings are irrelevant and useless.

She can't handle this too much longer.

"I love you." She doesn't know why she said it. She does know that the words are barely there, lingering, just touching, dancing on the electricity she imagines to crackle there, there in the space between them.

She says it and draws a semi-circle in the dirt with the toe of her shoe. The top of her white flip-flop turns a shade of brown and she stares at the arc her foot created.

She looks up, and there he is. Studying her; his expression the same as it had always been behind the walls of the Hogwarts library, never changing, never varying, whether he was reading of the history of werewolf prejudices or the numerous species of hinkypuffs, it was always the same. Conflicting wonder and desire to slam the book closed.

There really wasn't anything different here. She's not really sure what she expected.

She wants to ask if he has heard her, but knows he already has. That steady, sickening sinking anchoring her in place.

"But you don't…" She wishes he would stop looking at her like that. Unwavering. Eyes never leaving her face, attempting, she would almost call it desperately, to lock with her own. "You don't love me?" And she hates that her voice sounds so pathetically meek, and Jesus, what is she even doing here?

She traces the semi-circle in the dirt once again.

"James. You love James, Lily. You love him."

Hearing it makes it so much worse. James. James. She loves James. She is supposed to love James. She is supposed to love him.

But what if she doesn't?

She finally looks at him, angry. "Then what are you? What would that make this – everything between you and me?"

"Lily…" Patience and Remus Lupin have always melded neatly and nicely; patience and Lily Evans have always gotten on like oil and water.

"No. Who are you to tell me who I love and who I don't? I love you, Remus. I love you. And don't even try to give me that bloody werewolf shit. I know you are poor. And I know about your…your disease. And I don't care. That's not a fucking excuse…to just get rid of me with." She finishes lamely, the wind taken out of her proverbial sails. She knows that's not what this is about, but it comforts her to argue it anyway.

"I wasn't going to say that." She hates his patience, his tolerance. She wants to shatter it as he has wrecked her self-control, the way he has sent her moral compass skittering into the dark corners of her universe.

"Then…"

She notices them, his hands, curled in tight aching fists at his sides. She notices the rigid line of his jaw, the clenched teeth that must be grinding underneath. And she knows. Knows he's fighting something. She's just not sure what.

"Remus?"

"He's my bloody best friend!" She can't help but look taken aback, and he clearly takes this in. "James, Lily. James is my best friend. And here I am, shagging his girl. And now she is telling me that she loves me, and it's wrong. And you…you know it is. That's the only reason why you came here in the first place."

Oh, God. This is all so wrong, and she knows it, and he knew it, all along, but no, that can't be what this has been about. No, she tells herself. She has made a decision. And Remus is it.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"Nothing…I'm not…nothing."

It's hitting her, swift, hard and fast. It had never been about love.

She looks away, swallowing quickly. No, that's a lie. It had been about love the second after the first in the string of accidents and collisions between the two of them, for that's what they really were. They were never two lovers meeting for clandestine rendezvous or passionate breaks between the sheets.

They were merely the meeting of two people, two people lost and alone; one feeling abandoned by the man she loved and the other, abandoned by the world.

It had been about love. A love for passion, a love for life. A love for adventure, a love for something, anything, out of the ordinary.

It had been about love the second their eyes had met. Love for an invisible target.

But she wants, she wants so bad for it to be a love for him and a love for her in return.

He continues to stare at her.

"I'm out, Lily," he whispers. "I can't…do this with you anymore."

She has imagined this scenario countless times. The ending of it all and their own sad attempts to return to life as it was before it all fell apart. Each time it was she who finally stepped up, cut him off, ended the affair. She doesn't like this version. At all.

She is angry. And has been, but now she's finally letting it show.

"Can't do what, Remus? What is it exactly that you can't do?"

He chuckles. "You…"

"You're disgusting."

"Yes, yes, I am, Lily. I am disgusting. I have spent the entire summer fucking my best friend's girlfriend. Yes, I would say I am pretty bloody disgusting. And then, and then to add insult to injury, I let her believe we're in love. Yes, Lily, I am sick. And disgusting. And I think it'd be best if you left right now."

The way he says it makes her believe he doesn't mean the half of it. But it strikes her all the same. A resounding punch to the gut with her, open-mouthed and slightly teary-eyed.

And finally the meaning of the words sink in.

"You don't…you don't love me?" She is convincing herself in those scant seconds between her question and his answer that the truth is all she needs, that it's better to know than let her imagination work its dirty tricks.

He looks away. And then back again. "How can I love you when you have James in your arms and a man who will never exist on a pedestal? I don't fit into that picture." He is angry. She can tell. His eyes have narrowed and his whole body is tense, taut, waiting to spring and attack.

"What picture?" She doesn't know why she is asking. She doesn't know how the words crawled out of her swollen throat.

"The one of you and James living happily ever after. I'm not that man. And you knew that, Lily. You knew that. I thought that's what brought you to me in the first place. I guess…I guess I was wrong."

She doesn't know why she feels so desperate. But she does.

"But I love you…" She wonders when it came to this. Lily Evans pleading for the love of another, outside his house, mid-afternoon with tall green trees and an overcast sky.

He steps forward. Kisses her on the forehead, softly, silently. He holds her shoulders in his hands and squeezes. Rests his forehead against hers, his eyes squinted shut.

"I know," he whispers. "I know." His tone says that he doesn't, that he doesn't know, and neither does she, and maybe it's fitting.

This feels like good-bye.

She has James in her arms.

She has perfection on a pedestal.

But that still leaves him.

"Where will you be?" It's a question without a prelude, a question minus an explanation. But he gets it, he understands.

But hasn't he always. 

"Where I've always been…" He kisses her softly, gently, and she realizes they have never kissed like this before. "Running free."

He kisses her once more, then turns and walks away.

She knows a farewell, a send-off, a parting line when she hears one, reads one, sees one. Feels one.

Standing alone in the woods surrounding the Lupin house, she understands. With a slight shudder and a quick swallow, the beginning of the tears to come, she understands.

This, this is pain. This is heartbreak.

This is what she asked for.

**- - -**

**-**

**- - -**


	11. 11: Tracks of a Train

**A 12 Step Program**

**Disclaimer: **Maybe for Halloween I'll dress up as JK Rowling. That's not going to mean I'm actually her, and better still, that doesn't mean I own the rights to the franchise I've disfigured and twisted here. _Harry Potter _is not mine, in case you didn't catch the drift.

**Rating: **R (adult themes, sexuality, language)

**Summary: **12 steps. 12 steps, and you can cure alcoholism, sex addiction, a love of coke, an uncontrollable rage or that hatred within yourself. 12 steps and you can dance in reverse, fall apart, and watch the carefully constructed fabric of your life unravel. And in 12 steps, two people can foolishly fall in love.

**Author's Note: **Um, so second to last chapter? What? And I made you wait over two months? My apologies for that, and I must say, I can't believe this is almost over and done with. It's kind of sad actually, because this story really is such a part of me and means a lot and the fact that I have over one hundred reviews on this story means all the more. So thank you, because, really, without all of you, this story probably wouldn't still be chugging along. This chapter may not go as some expected, but, really, it's been the vision all along. I leave you with Chapter 11, and the final chapter shall be posted soon. Thank you again!

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**-**

**- - -**

**11. Tracks of a Train**

Horses in my dreams  
Like waves, like the sea  
On the tracks of a train  
Set myself free again

I have pulled myself clear

Again

- _"Horses in My Dreams" PJ Harvey_

- - -

-

- - -

She's not going to talk about it. She's not going to think about it. It's over and it never should have started and that's all there is and all she's left with: an ending.

The scenery through her sunglasses bores her as it whips past the window. Half an hour out and there's still half an hour left to go.

August tastes stale and the morning came after the night before and the day before that, and Lily realizes, that ever since that day at Remus Lupin's, everything has had the same kind of ring to it, and it's not sad, nor is it particularly memorable. Just there and kind of empty and she guesses that makes sense.

She guesses that makes sense because she's never felt so lost before.

The signs announce they are a town away.

Lily is visiting her mother's dying grandmother. Her mother sits behind the steering wheel, strangely tense and quiet and they haven't exchanged a word since they pulled out of the driveway.

It's good not to talk and it's even better not to think.

The radio plays and the BeeGees sing about staying alive and Olivia Newton-John is the one that John Travolta wants. As the Commodores filter through the speakers, her mother turns it off with a quick flick of the wrist.

The silence is strange and it is August and they are driving the hour to go visit Grandma Katherine, the woman that raised Lily's own mother after the death of Katherine's daughter.

Lily hasn't seen her in what must be ages. She imagines the whole magic thing might have something to do with it, and the fact that Grandma Katherine has believed that for the past seven years Lily has been attending a boarding school for the exceptionally gifted. She knows it's not and that her father is the one to blame.

Lily twirls a strand of red hair around her finger and the silence is strange and the window is hot pressed against her forehead. Her legs are tanner than she remembers and strangely long beneath her skirt.

"How is Grandma Katherine doing?"

Her voice sounds strange, strained almost, maybe even fake. Her mother clears her throat, and gives her a sidelong glance.

"She's old, Lily. And not well. The doctors don't give her much time, and you know how ever since your grandfather passed she doesn't care for visitors, family or otherwise, so the mere fact she invited us over says enough. The old woman knows this is it."

That morning had been the first time Katherine's name had been mentioned in awhile. There was some sort of familial drama swirling around the marriage of Lily's parents, which should be romantic and dashing and the stuff of fiction, but really it was just the falling out of Lily's mother and Lily's great-grandmother, and rather than thrilling and epic-worthy, it was really just kind of sad.

Lily had her bowl of cereal and half-empty glass of juice precariously at her elbow. Her mother was humming an ambiguous pop tune, and her father announced that the crops were failing, too much rain, from behind the front page of_ The Daily Prophet_ that yelled of four more dead by Death Eaters' hands.

The phone rang, and her mother dried her hands on the floral dishtowel and answered it. A lyrical hello and then nothing but a brief muttering and the return of the receiver to its rightful place.

She had moved to the sink with a broken kind of grace, and Lily was trying to not think of trees and the grass and the way it felt to move above and below it all with a boy who never should have existed in her life, and the heavy clink of dirty china and glassware was the only noise in the sunny kitchen.

"Grandma Katherine is dying," she said, and her father put down the paper, and Lily, her spoon.

Her father went to cut the grass. Lily went upstairs to change.

- - -

-

- - -

The house is old, but the landscaping immaculate. The bushes are pruned and the flowers face the sun and the grass is green and an aesthetically pleasing length. The porch is long and white, wicker chairs and a hanging swing that sways and creaks on the afternoon breeze.

They knock once and a nurse opens the door promptly. No one smiles, and Lily would guess that's appropriate when visiting the house of the dead or the dying.

"She wants to see you first," she whispers to Lily's mother, and wraps an arm around her shoulders and steers her towards the stairs.

Lily stands in the foyer, kind of dumb and useless, and watches them ascend the landing.

The clock strikes two, and the sound echoes in the empty hall.

Old portraits hang on the wall, and for the briefest of seconds, she expects them to move and wave her way, but they don't. They remain still and somber, monochromatic, behind their gilded frames.

Lily's shoes echo on the parquet as she wanders closer.

Families of the past hang there, blank faces, strict poses, dressed darkly and ornately. They all look the same and they all look a bit like her.

She wanders the line and stops before the last portrait. Her mother hangs there on the wall, all red hair and slight smile, a younger version of the woman upstairs; a mirror image of herself.

The floorboards creak and the stairs whine and her mother turns the corner at the base of the staircase.

"She wants to see you now," she whispers.

Lily nods and grips the banister.

The room is dark, the shades drawn and the wallpaper heavy and old. An impossibly tiny woman sits in a bright pink armchair, pillows all around her, warm blanket wrapped around her frame despite the summer heat of the room.

Lily smiles wanly and takes the chair across from her.

"How are you, Grandma?"

"I'm dying, child, that's how I am. But I think a better, and far more interesting question would be, how are you?"

Lily stares, slightly dumbfounded. She had forgotten more of this woman than she had thought; she had forgotten, more specifically, her special blend and breed of humor.

"I'm…you know." Because, really, at this point, there is no honest, acceptable way to answer that without Lily coming across as anything short of a fool and a trollop.

"No, I really don't know. I haven't seen you in what might as well have been forever." She takes a slow, patient swallow of her tea, the cup shaking in her tiny hand, and grimaces as it washes down. "You look like a real woman now, Lily. A real woman. And here I am, closing in on ninety fast, so you'll have to excuse an old woman when she says that no, she doesn't know what it's like to be young and carefree again."

Lily smiles, polite this time, and looking back, back to May, this summer, the school year leading up to it, she has nothing left to say, she has nothing left except people change and things change and she doesn't know what she wants anymore or if that's supposed to mean anything at all.

"Things are…well, things are different."

"And how so?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Pet, my eyes are no good and I've read enough Jane Austen in a lifetime to never have a desire to pick up a book again. My soaps aren't on, so you are my entertainment for the day. Elaborate, darling."

Lily takes a deep breath, and barrels ahead without thinking.

"Things aren't the way they once were and they're never going to be again. Petunia is married and has a house and a family of her own. School is over and I need a job and my friends are getting married already, and, and… The world…the world is changing, and it might not be for the better. It's just…not the same. And I don't know what to do with it."

Katherine laughs appreciatively and Lily doesn't remember ever saying anything particularly funny.

"What's that line people love to say? That everything is going to be alright? Love, it's bollocks. Every word of it. Things are not going to be fine. Things are going to change and it is everything but 'alright.' But they are going to keep on moving forward. And you best have your wits about you, girl, because you're moving along with it whether you like it or not."

Lily sits there, quiet. And she feels as though she shouldn't be here, that instead, she should be behind the walls of a church, shrouded deep within the confessional and asking for help, begging for salvation.

But she is here, with a woman she scarcely knows.

"I've made mistakes," she whispers, unsure what or why she's speaking. "And I've been stupid…and, and I don't know how to fix it. I don't even know if I want to."

She rests a small hand on Lily's knee.

"You haven't been stupid, child. You've been young. To live without regrets is to hardly live at all. Or so they say. Doesn't make it all the easier, now does it? At least you recognize it. It's a start. You're not a child anymore. It's time to grow up and face what's waiting for you, ugliness and responsibilities, disappointments, and all. Regrets come with the package. But there's no point in dwelling on it. Deep down, you know what you want and you know what's right. You are my great-granddaughter after all."

She inhales heavily, coughs hard and shakes her head. "My time here is up. Doesn't make me a pessimist for thinking it. Makes me rational. My time is over and a new era is upon is. Nothing will be the same.

"But you don't want to sit here listening to a sentimental old sap."

She nods her head and a nurse appears at the door. Lily takes this as her cue to go and rises, slow, a little unsteady, and a frail hand closes around her wrist.

"Before you go, child, here. Have these. Won't be much use to me when I'm in the grave, and it is true what they say. No lady should ever go without pearls. Be good, child.

"Be brave."

- - -

-

- - -

The downstairs of the house is empty, save for the portraits and the furniture covered prematurely in white sheets.

The nurse shows her to the door and closes it soundly behind her.

The roses by the porch smell too strong and the bees buzz around her head.

She walks to the car and opens the door, slides onto the hot leather of the passenger seat.

Her mother sits there, behind the steering wheel, hands limp in her lap, crying.

"I'm really going to miss her," she finally whispers.

Unsure, feeling slightly unsure, Lily presses the pearls into her mother's hand and closes her fingers tightly. The birds chirp and there is the sound of children laughing, a dog barking and an angry car horn blaring.

The radio announces breaking news, her mother's shoulders continue to shake, and Lily is tired and the pope is now dead.

The car starts with a broken purr.

It's the start of a new era.

- - -

-

- - -

The part of her brain that is still functioning recognizes this as panic.

It was supposed to be her first mission and it was supposed to be something easy and she was supposed to go with James, and she did, and there were awkward silences and disjointed comments and she quit trying, and so did he.

And then the ambush came.

She's not sure when the rest of the Order apparated in, or hell, how the fuck they knew to come in the first place, but Frank is running full speed ahead and yelling words she can't understand and Remus and Sirius are throwing punches rather than spells, and Lily, Lily is just standing there.

She goes to move, but isn't sure which direction to travel, and she ducks as a searing line of green zings her way, up and over her head. Over her head, yes, that's it. She's in over her head.

The panic is overwhelming, and maybe she'll be sick, and she just wants to close her eyes, and more than that, she just wants to go home.

A deep breath in, and fuck, James was right. James was right. She's not ready for this.

And she can't hear anything. There's an overwhelming silence, full of slow movement and sharp punches that don't move fast enough and mouths that move but make no sound and she stands there, stock still, and watches it all fall away, watches it unfold, and suddenly it all rushes back and the sound is deafening, an angry cacophony of Latin phrases and shouts and cries of pain.

Lily lands heavily on her back, her breath leaving in a hard huff, and she stares up and up and up and she can't see the stars, just the dark night sky with nothing to light it.

She closes her eyes and red crosses light the sky, a baby is born, and she is dressed in white. She closes her eyes and thinks this is what it feels like to die, and she waits for the ground to slip away and for there to be nothing.

Something connects with her forehead, and as it all goes black, it's James's face she sees.

- - -

-

- - -

"Ow," she mutters.

Sitting up, her elbow digging into the cool dirt, grass sticking to her arm, James is there before her, towel pressed to her head.

"You alright?" He asks, eyebrow quirked in what she can only guess is compassion.

"Yeah…what happened?"

He chuckles. "You got hit in the head with a rock."

"That's not funny," she mutters.

She waves his hand away and presses her own against the towel and the wound and winces slightly.

"How long was I out?"

"Long enough to miss the battle."

"I feel like such an idiot. I mean, I didn't even do anything. I just…stood there." She shakes her head, and grimaces as the pain increases. "I shouldn't be doing this. You were right. This…isn't for me. I'm not…I'm not brave like the rest of you…and I'm just…"

He looks at her, startled and confused, and Lily quits speaking.

"That's never what I meant."

"What?"

"I never thought you couldn't do this. I just thought, well, I thought you needed more training. To be kind of eased into it. It's never easy to start out with, and you didn't want to hear it…and, I'm not making excuses and, fuck. I don't know what's happened between us. I'm not sure when I became the villain in your life, Lils, or when you quit wanting anything to do with me. This summer, it hasn't been right, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I offended you and I'm sorry if I haven't always been the man you've wanted, but, Lily, you have to learn to trust me. You have to start…talking to me and telling me things. Because otherwise, otherwise…"

She can't look at him. Lily can't meet his eyes because he's right and if there's one thing that James Potter does damn well it's always being right and always being correct and this time is no exception.

"I thought I wouldn't have to," she says, softly. "I thought if you loved someone, that somehow could be enough." And it's really kind of sad, because she is speaking the truth and deep down somewhere she really did believe this: that loving someone was enough and talking was unnecessary because they already knew everything there was to know about the other person.

"It's not," he whispers.

"James. I don't want…I don't want to be just yours. I don't want to become nothing more than James Potter's wife, and I don't just want to be a mother and a housekeeper and I don't want that life."

"I don't want that for you either."

"Alright then. Alright." There's nothing left to say, she thinks, but the truth, and she stares straight ahead into nothing, before turning to face him again.

"Do you think…do you think we can….Do you think we're meant to be together? I mean, James, we're not the same anymore. I'm not the girl you fell in love with and you're not the…"

He waits before he answers.

"No. We're not the same. But does that have to be a bad thing? I mean, people evolve. Why can't love too?"

She chuckles, because that's so easy, and he's right, and isn't this why she wanted him in the first place?

"Lily, I love you. God, you have to know that much. I know we've fucked up and things haven't been right for awhile, but I love you. Okay? I love you."

It's not what you expect it to be. And it's not what you might have wanted in the first place. But this, it's quiet, it's controlled. It's strangely adult.

_It's time to grow up and face what's waiting for you, ugliness and responsibilities, disappointments, and all._

_  
Deep down, you know what you want and you know what's right._

"I love you, too." And she does. She always has. She always has.

She looks at him, and she wonders. Invisible connections. Maybe that is what this has all been about, her and Remus. That desperate, almost sad, attempt to string together two people, string together two people and at the same time try to string along the world and let it all make sense, and in the end, the eventual end, find and reach a completion she can't even imagine and where it all makes a perfect kind of logic.

She doesn't think she found that answer; she knows she hasn't. She knows she never reached that satisfaction. Not with either one of them.

She does see the world a little different now. And maybe that is what growing up, mistakes and the passage of time allow to happen. A change in outlook, the coloring, the shading of the world becomes just a little bit different. Just a little off the balance of the way it once was.

"I'm sorry," she whispers.

He nods and he holds her, and he never asks her why.

She can see the stars from here.

- - -

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End file.
